THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


Ex  Libris 
ISAAC  FOOT 


THE     MEANING    OF    HISTORY 


OTHER    HISTORICAL    PIECES 


THE 

MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

AND  OTHER  HISTORICAL  PIECES 


BY 


FREDERIC    HARRISON 


LONDON 

MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 
AND    NEW   YORK 

1894 

All  rights  reserved 


Edinburgh :  T.  and  A.  CONSTABLE,  Printers  to  Her  Majesty 


NOTE 

THIS  volume  contains  a  collection  of  essays  designed 
to  stimulate  the  systematic  study  of  general  history. 
They  are  (with  two  exceptions)  the  permanent  and 
condensed  form  of  historical  lectures  given  in  a  series 
of  courses  at  various  places  of  education.  The  writer 
has  been  constantly  occupied  with  the  teaching  of 
history  since  1862;  and  the  first  two  chapters  of  this 
book  were  the  introduction  to  a  course  of  lectures 
given  in  that  year  to  a  London  audience.  They  were 
printed  at  the  time,  but  the  issue  has  been  long 
exhausted.  The  third  chapter  (which  is  in  effect  a 
Choice  of  Books  of  History)  and  also  the  fifth  chapter 
(a  synthetic  survey  of  the  Thirteenth  Century)  were 
inaugural  lectures  given  in  the  New  Schools  at  Oxford 
to  the  summer  vacation  students.  The  other  chapters 
are  based  on  lectures  given  by  the  writer  at  various 
times  at  Newton  Hall,  Toynbee  Hall,  the  London 
Institution,  and  other  literary  and  scientific  institutions. 
Several  of  these  chapters  (about  half  the  present  volume 
in  bulk)  have  already  appeared  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review  and  in  one  or  two  other  periodicals.  They 
have  in  all  cases  been  carefully  revised  and  partly 
rewritten  ;  and  the  author  has  to  express  to  the 
Editors  and  Proprietors  of  these  organs  his  grateful 
thanks  for  the  courtesy  with  which  he  has  been 
enabled  to  use  them. 


D7 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  THE  USE  OF  HISTORY, i 

II.  THE  CONNECTION  OF  HISTORY,    .        .        .        .        .  26 

III.  SOME  GREAT  BOOKS  OF  HISTORY,        .        .        .        .  81 

IV.  THE  HISTORY  SCHOOLS  (AN  OXFORD  DIALOGUE),       .  124 
V.  A  SURVEY  OF  THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY,         .        .  146 

VI.  WHAT  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1789  DID,        .        .        .  180 

VII.  FRANCE  IN  1789  AND  1889, 217 

VIII.  THE  CITY  :  ANCIENT — MEDIEVAL — MODERN — IDEAL,  233 

(i)  THE  ANCIENT  CITY, 235 

(n)  THE  MEDIAEVAL  CITY,         ....  244 

(in)  THE  MODERN  CITY, 250 

(iv)  THE  IDEAL  CITY, 256 

IX.  ROME  REVISITED, 265 

X.  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ATHENS, 298 

XI.  CONSTANTINOPLE  AS  AN  HISTORIC  CITY,     .        .        .  324 

(i)  BYZANTINE  HISTORY, 324 

(n)  TOPOGRAPHICAL  CONDITIONS,      .        .        .  334 

(m)  ANTIQUITIES  OF  CONSTANTINOPLE,     .        .  346 

XII.  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CONSTANTINOPLE,    ....  358 

(i)  THE  HISTORICAL  PROBLEM,        .        .        .  359 

(n)  THE  POLITICAL  PROBLEM,  ....  378 

XIII.  PARIS  AS  AN  HISTORIC  CITY, 3^7 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAl'. 

XIV.  THE  TRANSFORMATION  OK  PARIS,        .        .        .  415 

XV.  THE  TRANSFORMATION  OF  LONDON,    .  .  433 

(i)  LONDON  IN  1887, 433 

(n)  LONDON  IN  1894, 452 

XVI.  THE  SACREDNESS  OF  ANCIENT  BUILDINGS,  .        .  459 

XVII.  PAI./EOGRAPHIC  PURISM, 479 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 


CHAPTER    I 

THE   USE   OF   HISTORY 

WHAT  is  the  use  of  historical  knowledge?  Is  an 
acquaintance  with  the  events,  the  men,  the  ideas  of  the 
past,  of  any  real  use  to  us  in  these  days — has  it  any 
practical  bearing  upon  happiness  and  conduct  in  life  ? 

Two  very  different  answers  may  be  given  to  this 
question.  The  Gradgrinds  and  the  Jack  Cades  assure 
us  that  there  is  no  use  at  all.  We  are,  they  would  say 
with  Bacon,  the  mature  age  of  the  world ;  with  us  lies 
the  gathered  wisdom  of  ages.  To  waste  our  time  in 
studying  exploded  fallacies,  in  reproducing  worn-out 
forms  of  society,  or  in  recalling  men  who  were  only 
conspicuous  because  they  lived  amidst  a  crowd  of 
ignorant  or  benighted  barbarians,  is  to  wander  from  the 
path  of  progress,  and  to  injure  and  not  to  improve  our 
understandings. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  commonplace  of  literary 
gossip  declares  that  history  has  fifty  different  uses.  It 
is  amusing  to  hear  what  curious  things  they  did  in 
bygone  times.  Then,  again,  it  is  very  instructive  as  a 
study  of  character  ;  we  see  in  history  the  working  of 
the  human  mind  and  will.  Besides,  it  is  necessary  to 

A 


2  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

avoid  the  blunders  they  committed  in  past  days :  there 
we  collect  a  store  of  moral  examples,  and  of  political 
maxims  ;  we  learn  to  watch  the  signs  of  the  times,  and 
to  be  prepared  for  situations  whenever  they  return. 
And  it  cannot  be  doubted,  they  add,  that  it  is  a  branch 
of  knowledge,  and  all  knowledge  is  good.  To  know 
history,  they  conclude,  is  to  be  well-informed,  is  to  be 
familiar  with  some  of  the  finest  examples  of  elegant  and 
brilliant  writing. 

Between  the  two,  those  who  tell  us  plainly  that 
history  is  of  no  use,  and  those  who  tell  us  vaguely  that 
history  is  of  fifty  uses,  there  is  not  much  to  choose. 
We  must  thoroughly  disagree  with  them  both,  and  of 
the  two  we  would  rather  deal  with  the  former.  Their 
opposition,  at  any  rate,  is  concentrated  into  a  single 
point,  and  may  be  met  by  a  single  and  a  direct  answer. 
To  them  we  may  say,  Are  you  consistent  ?  Do  you 
not  in  practice  follow  another  course  ?  In  rejecting  all 
connection  with  the  facts  and  ideas  of  the  past,  are  you 
not  cutting  the  ground  from  under  your  own  feet? 
Assume  that  you  are  an  active  politician  and  a  staunch 
friend  of  the  conservative  or  liberal  party.  What  are 
the  traditional  principles  of  a  party  but  a  fraction,  small, 
no  doubt,  but  a  sensible  fraction,  of  history?  You 
believe  in  the  cause  of  progress.  Yet  what  is  the  cause 
of  progress  but  the  extension  of  that  civilisation,  of  that 
change  for  the  better  which  we  have  all  witnessed  or 
have  learned  to  recognise  as  an  established  fact  ?  Your 
voice,  if  you  are  a  politician  and  a  democrat,  is  on  the 
side  of  freedom.  Well,  but  do  you  never  appeal  to 
Magna  Charta,  to  the  Bill  of  Rights,  to  the  Reform  Acts, 
to  American  Independence,  or  the  French  Revolution? 
Or  you  are  an  imperialist,  and  you  will  suffer  no  outrage 
on  the  good  name  of  England.  You  are  ready  to  cover 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  3 

the  seas  with  armaments  to  uphold  the  national  great- 
ness. But  what  is  the  high  name  of  England  if  it  is 
not  the  memory  of  all  the  deeds  by  which,  in  peace  or 
war,  on  sea  or  land,  England  has  held  her  own  amongst 
the  foremost  of  the  earth  ? 

Nor  is  it  true  that  we  show  no  honour  to  the  men  of 
the  past,  are  not  guided  by  their  ideas,  and  do  not  dwell 
upon  their  lives,  their  work,  and  their  characters.  The 
most  turbulent  revolutionary  that  ever  lived,  the  most 
bitter  hater  of  the  past,  finds  many  to  admire.  It  may  be 
Cromwell,  it  may  be  Rousseau,  or  Voltaire,  it  may  be 
Robert  Owen,  but  some  such  leader  each  will  have ; 
his  memory  he  will  revere,  his  influence  he  will  admit, 
his  principles  he  will  contend  for.  Thus  it  will  be  in 
every  sphere  of  active  life.  No  serious  politician  can 
fail  to  recognise  that,  however  strongly  he  repudiates 
antiquity,  and  rebels  against  the  tyranny  of  custom, 
still  he  himself  only  acts  freely  and  consistently 
he  is  following  the  path  trodden  by  earlier  leaders,  and 
is  working  with  the  current  of  the  principles  in  which 
he  throws  himself,  and  in  which  he  has  confidence. 
For  him,  then,  it  is  not  true  that  he  rejects  all  common 
purpose  with  what  has  gone  before.  It  is  a  question 
only  of  selection  and  of  degree.  To  some  he  clings,  the 
rest  he  rejects.  Some  history  he  does  study,  and  finds 
in  it  both  profit  and  enjoyment. 

Suppose  such  a  man  to  be  interested  in  any  study 
whatever,  either  in  promoting  general  education,  or 
eager  to  acquire  knowledge  for  himself.  He  will  find, 
at  every  step  he  takes,  that  he  is  appealing  to  the 
authority  of  the  past,  is  using  the  ideas  of  former  ages, 
and  carrying  out  principles  established  by  ancient,  but 
not  forgotten  thinkers.  If  he  studies  geometry  he  will 
find  that  the  first  text-book  put  into  his  hand  was 


4  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

written  by  a  Greek  two  thousand  years  ago.  If  he 
takes  up  a  grammar,  he  will  be  only  repeating  rules 
taught  by  Roman  schoolmasters  and  professors.  Or  is 
he  interested  in  art  ?  He  will  find  the  same  thing  in  a 
far  greater  degree.  He  goes  to  the  British  Museum, 
and  he  walks  into  a  building  which  is  a  good  imitation 
of  a  Greek  temple.  He  goes  to  the  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment to  hear  a  debate,  and  he  enters  a  building  which 
is  a  bad  imitation  of  a  mediaeval  town-hall.  Or,  again, 
we  know  that  he  reads  his  Shakespeare  and  Milton  ; 
feels  respect  for  the  opinions  of  Bacon  or  of  Hume,  or 
Adam  Smith.  Such  a  man,  the  moment  he  takes  a 
warm  interest  in  anything — in  politics,  in  education,  in 
science,  in  art,  or  in  social  improvement — the  moment 
that  his  intelligence  is  kindled,  and  his  mind  begins  to 
work — that  moment  he  is  striving  to  throw  himself  into 
the  stream  of  some  previous  human  efforts,  to  identify 
himself  with  others,  and  to  try  to  understand  and  to 
follow  the  path  of  future  progress  which  has  been  traced 
out  for  him  by  the  leaders  of  his  own  party  or  school. 
Therefore,  such  a  man  is  not  consistent  when  he  says 
that  history  is  of  no  use  to  him.  He  does  direct  his 
action  by  what  he  believes  to  be  the  course  laid  out 
before  him  ;  he  does  follow  the  guidance  of  certain 
teachers  whom  he  respects. 

We  have  then  only  to  ask  him  on  what  grounds  he 
rests  his  selection  ;  why  he  chooses  some  and  rejects  all 
others  ;  how  he  knows  for  certain  that  no  other  corner 
of  the  great  field  of  history  will  reward  the  care  of  the 
ploughman,  or  bring  forth  good  seed.  In  spite  of  him- 
self, he  will  find  himself  surrounded  in  every  act  and 
thought  of  life  by  a  power  which  is  too  strong  for  him. 
If  he  chooses  simply  to  stagnate,  he  may,  perhaps,  dis- 
pense with  any  actual  reference  to  the  past ;  but  the 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  5 

moment  he  begins  to  act,  to  live,  or  to  think,  he  must 
use  the  materials  presented  to  him,  and,  so  far  as  he  is 
a  member  of  a  civilised  community,  so  far  as  he  is  an 
Englishman,  so  far  as  he  is  a  rational  man,  he  can  as 
little  free  himself  from  the  influence  of  former  genera- 
tions as  he  can  free  himself  from  his  personal  identity  ; 
unlearn  all  that  he  has  learnt ;  cease  to  be  what  his 
previous  life  has  made  him,  and  blot  out  of  his  memory 
all  recollection  whatever. 

Let  us  suppose  for  a  moment  that  any  set  of  men 
could  succeed  in  sweeping  away  from  them  all  the  influ- 
ences of  past  ages,  and  everything  that  they  had  not 
themselves  discovered  or  produced.  Suppose  that  all 
knowledge  of  the  gradual  steps  of  civilisation,  of  the 
slow  process  of  perfecting  the  arts  of  life  and  the  natural 
sciences,  were  blotted  out ;  suppose  all  memory  of  the 
efforts  and  struggles  of  earlier  generations,  and  of  the 
deeds  of  great  men,  were  gone ;  all  the  landmarks  of 
history  ;  all  that  has  distinguished  each  country,  race,  or 
city  in  past  times  from  others  ;  all  notion  of  what  man 
had  done,  or  could  do  ;  of  his  many  failures,  of  his  suc- 
cesses, of  his  hopes ;  suppose  for  a  moment  all  the 
books,  all  the  traditions,  all  the  buildings  of  past  ages 
to  vanish  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  with  them  the 
institutions  of  society,  all  political  forms,  all  principles 
of  politics,  all  systems  of  thought,  all  daily  customs,  all 
familiar  arts  ;  suppose  the  most  deep-rooted  and  most 
sacred  of  all  our  institutions  gone ;  suppose  that  the 
family  and  home,  property,  and  justice  were  strange 
ideas  without  meaning ;  that  all  the  customs  which 
surround  us  each  from  birth  to  death  were  blotted  out ; 
suppose  a  race  of  men  whose  minds,  by  a  paralytic 
stroke  of  fate,  had  suddenly  been  deadened  to  every 
recollection,  to  whom  the  whole  world  was  new, — can 


6  Till;   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

we  imagine  a  condition  of  such  utter  helplessness,  con- 
fusion, and  misery  ? 

Such  a  race  might  retain  their  old  powers  of  mind 
and  of  activity,  nay,  both  might  be  increased  tenfold, 
and  yet  it  would  not  profit  them.  Can  we  conceive  such 
a  race  acting  together,  living  together,  for  one  hour? 
They  would  have  everything  to  create.  Would  any  two 
agree  to  adopt  the  same  custom,  and  could  they  live 
without  any?  They  would  have  all  the  arts,  all  the 
sciences  to  reconstruct  anew  ;  and  even  their  tenfold 
intellect  would  not  help  them  there.  With  minds  of  the 
highest  order  it  would  be  impossible  to  think,  for  the 
world  would  present  one  vast  chaos  ;  even  with  the 
most  amazing  powers  of  activity,  they  would  fall  back 
exhausted  from  the  task  of  reconstructing,  reproducing 
everything  around  them.  Had  they  the  wisest  teachers 
or  the  highest  social  or  moral  purposes,  they  would  all 
be  lost  and  wasted  in  an  interminable  strife,  and  con- 
tinual difference ;  for  family,  town,  property,  society, 
country,  nay,  language  itself,  would  be  things  which 
each  would  be  left  to  create  for  himself,  and  each  would 
create  in  a  different  manner.  It  would  realise,  indeed, 
the  old  fable  of  the  tower  of  Babel ;  and  the  pride 
of  self  would  culminate  in  confusion  and  dispersion. 
A  race  with  ten  times  the  intellect,  twenty  times  the 
powers,  and  fifty  times  the  virtues  of  any  race  that  ever 
lived  on  earth  would  end,  within  a  generation,  in  a  state 
of  hopeless  barbarism  ;  the  earth  would  return  to  the 
days  of  primeval  forests  and  swamps,  and  man  descend 
almost  to  the  level  of  the  monkey  and  the  beaver. 

Now,  if  this  be  true,  if  we  are  so  deeply  indebted  and 
so  indissolubly  bound  to  preceding  ages,  if  all  our  hopes 
of  the  future  depend  on  a  sound  understanding  of  the 
past,  we  cannot  fancy  any  knowledge  more  important 


THE   USE  OF   HISTORY  7 

than  the  knowledge  of  the  way  in  which  this  civilisation- 
has  been  built  up.  If  the  destiny  of  our  race,  and  the 
daily  action  of  each  of  us,  are  so  completely  directed  by 
it,  the  useful  existence  of  each  depends  much  upon  a 
right  estimate  of  that  which  has  so  constant  an  influence 
over  him  ;  will  be  advanced  as  he  works  with  the  work- 
ing of  that  civilisation,  above  him,  and  around  him  ;  will 
be  checked  as  he  opposes  it ;  it  depends  upon  this,  that 
he  mistakes  none  of  the  elements  that  go  to  make  up 
that  civilisation  as  a  whole,  and  sees  them  in  their  due 
relation  and  harmony. 

This  brings  us  to  that  second  class  of  objectors ; 
those  who,  far  from  denying  the  interest  of  the  events 
of  the  past,  far  from  seeing  no  use  at  all  in  their  study, 
are  only  too  ready  in  discovering  a  multitude  of  reasons 
for  it,  and  at  seeing  in  it  a  variety  of  incongruous  pur- 
poses. If  they  suppose  that  it  furnishes  us  with  parallels 
when  similar  events  occur,  the  answer  is,  that  similar 
events  never  do  and  never  can  occur  in  history.  The 
history  of  man  offers  one  unbroken  chain  of  constant 
change,  in  which  no  single  situation  is  ever  reproduced. 
The  story  of  the  world  is  played  out  like  a  drama  in 
many  acts  and  scenes,  not  like  successive  games  of 
chess,  in  which  the  pieces  meet,  combat,  and  manoeuvre 
for  a  time,  and  then  the  board  is  cleared  for  another 
trial,  and  they  are  replaced  in  their  original  positions. 
Political  maxims  drawn  crudely  from  history  may  doj 
more  harm  than  good.  You  may  justify  anything  by  a 
pointed  example  in  history.  It  will  show  you  instances 
of  triumphant  tyranny  and  triumphant  tyrannicide. 
You  may  find  in  it  excuses  for  any  act  or  any  system. 
What  is  true  of  one  country  is  wholly  untrue  of  another.  , 
What  led  to  a  certain  result  in  one  age,  leads  to  a  wholly 
opposite  result  in  another. 


8  THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

Then  as  to  character,  if  the  sole  object  of  studying 
history  is  to  see  in  it  the  workings  of  the  human  heart, 
that  is  far  better  studied  in  the  fictitious  creations  of  the 
great  masters  of  character — in  Shakespeare,  in  Moliere, 
in  Fielding,  and  Scott.  Macbeth  and  Richard  are  as 
true  to  nature  as  any  name  in  history,  and  give  us  an 
impression  of  desperate  ambition  more  vivid  than  the 
tale  of  any  despot  in  ancient  or  modern  times.  Besides, 
if  we  read  history  only  to  find  in  it  picturesque  incident 
or  subtle  shades  of  character,  we  run  as  much  chance  of 
stumbling  on  the  worthless  and  the  curious  as  the  noble 
and  the  great.  A  Hamlet  is  a  study  in  interest  perhaps 
exceeding  all  others  in  fiction  or  in  fact,  but  we  shall 
hardly  find  that  Hamlets  have  stamped  their  trace  very 
deep  in  the  history  of  mankind.  There  are  few  lives  in 
all  human  story  more  romantic  than  that  of  Alcibiades, 
and  none  more  base.  Some  minds  find  fascination  in 
the  Popish  plots  of  Titus  Gates,  where  the  interest 
centres  round  a  dastardly  ruffian.  And  the  bullies,  the 
fops,  the  cut-throats,  and  the  Jezebels  who  crowded  the 
courts  of  the  Stuarts  and  the  Georges,  have  been  con- 
signed to  permanent  infamy  in  libraries  of  learned  and 
of  brilliant  works. 

Brilliant  and  ingenious  writing  has  been  the  bane  of 
history ;  it  has  degraded  its  purpose,  and  perverted 
many  of  its  uses.  Histories  have  been  written  which 
are  little  but  minute  pictures  of  scoundrelism  and  folly 
triumphant.  Wretches,  who  if  alive  now  would  be  con- 
signed to  the  gallows  or  the  hulks,  have  only  to  take,  as 
it  is  said,  a  place  in  history,  and  generations  after 
generations  of  learned  men  will  pore  over  their  lives, 
collect  their  letters,  their  portraits,  or  their  books,  search 
out  every  fact  in  their  lives  with  prurient  inquisitiveness, 
and  chronicle  their  rascalities  in  twenty  volumes.  Such 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  9 

stories,  some  may  say,  have  a  human  interest.  So  has 
the  Neivgate  Calendar  a  human  interest  of  a  certain 
kind.  Brilliant  writing  is  a  most  delusive  guide.  In 
search  of  an  effective  subject  for  a  telling  picture,  men 
have  wandered  into  strange  and  dismal  haunts.  We  none 
of  us  choose  our  friends  on  such  a  plan.  Why,  then, 
should  we  choose  thus  the  friends  round  whom  our  re- 
collections are  to  centre?  We  none  of  us  wish  to  be 
intimate  with  a  man  simply  because  he  is  a  picturesque- 
looking  villain,  nor  do  we  bring  to  our  firesides  men 
who  have  the  reputation  of  being  the  loudest  braggarts 
or  keenest  sharpers  of  their  time. 

Let  us  pass  by  untouched  these  memoirs  of  the  un- 
memorable — these  lives  of  those  who  never  can  be  said 
to  have  lived.  Pass  them  all :  these  riotings,  intrigues, 
and  affectations  of  worthless  men  and  worthless  ages. 
Better  to  know  nothing  of  the  past  than  to  know  only 
its  follies,  though  set  forth  in  eloquent  language  and 
with  attractive  anecdote.  It  does  not  profit  to  know 
the  names  of  all  the  kings  that  ever  lived,  and  the 
catalogue  of  all  their  whims  and  vices,  and  a  minute 
list  of  their  particular  weaknesses,  with  all  their  fools, 
buffoons,  mistresses,  and  valets.  Again,  some  odd  inci- 
dent becomes  the  subject  of  the  labour  of  lives,  and 
fills  volume  after  volume  of  ingenious  trifling.  Some 
wretched  little  squabble  is  exhumed,  unimportant  in 
itself,  unimportant  for  the  persons  that  were  engaged  in 
it,  trivial  in  its  results.  Lives  are  spent  in  raking  up 
old  letters  to  show  why  or  how  some  parasite  like 
Sir  T.  Overbury  was  murdered,  or  to  unravel  some  plot 
about  a  maid  of  honour,  or  a  diamond  necklace,  or 
some  conspiracy  to  turn  out  a  minister  or  to  detect 
some  court  impostor.  There  are  plenty  of  things  to 
find  out,  or,  if  people  are  afflicted  with  a  morbid 


10  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

curiosity,  there  are  Chinese  puzzles  or  chess  problems 
left  for  them  to  solve,  without  ransacking  the  public 
records  and  libraries  to  discover  which  out  of  a  name- 
less crowd  was  the  most  unmitigated  scoundrel,  or  who 
it  is  that  must  have  the  credit  of  being  the  author  of 
some  peculiarly  venomous  or  filthy  pamphlet.  Why 
need  we  have  six  immense  volumes  to  prove  to  the 
world  that  you  have  found  the  villain,  and  ask  them  to 
read  all  about  him,  and  explain  in  brilliant  language 
how  some  deed  of  darkness  or  some  deed  of  folly 
really  was  done  ? 

And  they  call  this  history.  This  serving  up  in  spiced 
dishes  of  the  clean  and  the  unclean,  the  wholesome  and 
.  the  noxious ;  this  plunging  down  into  the  charnel- 
house  of  the  great  graveyard  of  the  past,  and  stirring 
up  the  decaying  carcases  of  the  outcasts  and  male- 
factors of  the  race.  No  good  can  come  of  such  work  : 
without  plan,  without  purpose,  without  breadth  of  view, 
and  without  method  ;  with  nothing  but  a  vague  desire 
to  amuse,  and  a  morbid  craving  for  novelty.  If  there 
is  one  common  purpose  running  through  the  whole 
history  of  the  past,  if  that  history  is  the  story  of  man's 
growth  in  dignity,  and  power,  and  goodness,  if  the 
gathered  knowledge  and  the  gathered  conscience  of 
past  ages  does  control  us,  support  us,  inspire  us,  then 
is  this  commemorating  these  parasites  and  offscourings 
of  the  human  race  worse  than  pedantry  or  folly.  It  is 
filling  us  with  an  unnatural  contempt  for  the  greatness 
of  the  past — nay,  it  is  committing  towards  our  spiritual 
forefathers  the  same  crime  which  Ham  committed 
against  his  father  Noah.  It  is  a  kind  of  sacrilege  to 
the  memory  of  the  great  men  to  whom  we  owe  all  we 
prize,  if  we  waste  our  lives  in  poring  over  the  acts  of 
the  puny  creatures  who  only  encumbered  their  path. 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  II 

Men  on  the  battle-field  or  in  their  study,  by  the 
labour  of  their  brains  or  of  their  hands,  have  given  us 
what  we  have,  and  made  us  what  we  are ;  a  noble  army 
who  have  done  battle  with  barbarism  and  the  powers  of 
nature,  martyrs  often  to  their  duty  ;  yet  we  are  often 
invited  to  turn  with  indifference  from  the  story  of  their 
long  march  and  many  victories,  to  find  amusement 
amidst  the  very  camp-followers  and  sutlers  who  hang 
upon  their  rear.  If  history  has  any  lessons,  any  unity, 
any  plan,  let  us  turn  to  it  for  this.  Let  this  be  our  test 
of  what  is  history  and  what  is  not,  that  it  teaches  us' 
something  of  the  advance  of  human  progress,  that  it 
tells  us  of  some  of  those  mighty  spirits  who  have  left 
their  mark  on  all  time,  that  it  shows  us  the  nations  of 
the  earth  woven  together  in  one  purpose,  or  is  lit  up 
with  those  great  ideas  and  those  great  purposes  which 
have  kindled  the  conscience  of  mankind. 

Why  is  knowledge  of  any  kind  useful  ?  It  is  certainly 
not  true  that  a  knowledge  of  facts,  merely  as  facts,  is 
desirable.  Facts  are  infinite,  and  it  is  not  the  millionth 
part  of  them  that  is  worth  knowing.  What  some  people 
call  the  pure  love  of  truth  often  means  only  a  pure  love 
of  intellectual  fussiness.  A  statement  may  be  true,  and 
yet  wholly  worthless.  It  cannot  be  all  facts  which  are 
the  subject  of  knowledge.  For  instance,  a  man  might 
learn  by  heart  the  Post-Office  Directory,  and  a  very 
remarkable  mental  exercise  it  would  be ;  but  he  would 
hardly  venture  to  call  himself  a  well-informed  man.  . 
No  ;  we  want  the  facts  only  which  add  to  our  power,  I/" 
or  will  enable  us  to  act.  They  only  give  us  knowledge 
— they  only  are  a  part  of  education.  For  instance,  i 
we  begin  the  study  of  mathematics ;  of  algebra,  or 
geometry.  We  hardly  expect  to  turn  it  to  practical 
account  like  another  Hudibras,  who  could  'tell  the 


12  THi:    MKANING   OF   HISTORY 

clock  by  algebra ' ;  but  we  do  not  find  Euclid's  geometry 
help  us  to  take  the  shortest  cut  to  our  own  house.  Our 
object  is  to  know  something  of  the  simplest  principles 
which  underlie  all  the  sciences :  to  understand  practi- 
cally what  mathematical  demonstration  means  :  to  bring 
home  to  our  minds  the  conception  of  scientific  axioms. 

Again,  we  study  some  of  the  physical  laws  of  nature 
— plain  facts  about  gravitation,  or  heat,  or  light.  What 
we  want  is  to  be  able  to  know  something  of  what  our 
modern  philosophers  are  talking  about.  We  want  to 
know  why  Faraday  is  a  great  teacher ;  to  know  what  it 
is  which  seems  to  affect  all  nature  equally  ;  which  brings 
us  down  heavily  upon  the  earth  if  we  stumble,  and  keeps 
the  planets  in  their  orbits.  We  want  to  understand 
what  are  laws  of  nature.  We  take  up  such  pursuits  as 
botany  or  geology  ;  but  then,  again,  not  in  order  to  dis- 
cover a  new  medicine,  or  a  gold-field,  or  a  coal-mine. 
No,  we  want  to  know  something  of  the  mystery  around 
us.  We  see  intelligible  structure,  consistent  unity,  and 
common  laws  in  the  earth  on  which  we  live,  with  the 
.view,  I  presume,  of  feeling  more  at  home  in  it,  of  be- 
coming more  attached  to  it,  of  living  in  it  more  happily. 
Some  study  physiology.  We  do  not  expect  to  discover 
the  elixir  of  life,  like  an  eminent  novelist,  nor  do  we 
expect  to  dispense  with  the  aid  of  the  surgeon.  We 
want  to  get  a  glimpse  of  that  marvellous  framework  of 
the  human  form,  some  notion  of  the  laws  of  its  exist- 
ence, some  idea  of  the  powers  which  affect  it,  which 
depress  or  develop  it,  some  knowledge  of  the  relation 
of  the  thinking  and  feeling  process  and  the  thinking 
and  feeling  organ.  We  seek  to  know  something  of  the 
influences  to  which  all  human  nature  is  subject,  to  be 
able  to  understand  what  people  mean  when  they  tell  us 
about  laws  of  health,  or  laws  of  life,  or  laws  of  thought. 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  13 

We  want  to  be  in  a  position  to  decide  for  ourselves  as 
to  the  trustworthiness  of  men  upon  whose  judgment  we 
depend  for  bodily  existence. 

Now,  in  this  list  of  the  subjects  of  a  rational  educa- 
tion something  is  wanting.  It  is  the  play  of  Hamlet 
without  the  Prince  of  Denmark  : — 

'  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man.' 

Whilst  Man  is  wanting,  all  the  rest  remains  vague, 
and  incomplete,  and  aimless.  Mathematics  would  indeed 
be  a  jumble  of  figures  if  it  ended  in  itself.  But  the 
moment  we  learn  the  influence  which  some  great  dis- 
covery has  had  on  the  destinies  of  man  ;  the  moment 
we  note  how  all  human  thought  was  lighted  up  when 
Galileo  said  that  the  sun,  and  not  the  earth,  was  the 
centre  of  our  world ;  the  moment  we  feel  that  the  de- 
monstrations of  Euclid  are  things  in  which  all  human 
minds  must  agree — indeed,  are  almost  the  only  things 
in  which  all  do  agree, — that  moment  the  science  has  a 
meaning,  and  a  clue,  and  a  plan.  It  had  none  so  long 
as  it  was  disconnected  from  the  history  and  the  destiny  - 
of  man — the  past  and  the  future.  It  is  the  same  with 
every  other  science.  What  would  be  the  meaning  of 
laws  of  nature,  unless  by  them  man  could  act  on  nature  ? 
What  would  be  the  use  of  knowing  the  laws  of  health, 
unless  we  supposed  that  a  sounder  knowledge  of  them 
would  ameliorate  the  condition  of  men  ?  What,  indeed, 

is  the  use  of  the  improvement  of  the  mind  ?     It  is  far\ 

from   obvious   that   mere   exercise   of  the   intellectual"| 
faculties  alone  is  a  good.    A  nation  of  Hamlets  (to  take 
a  popular   misconception  of  that  character)  would  be 
more  truly  miserable,  perhaps  more  truly  despicable, "  ^^ 
than  a  nation  of  Bushmen.     By  a  cultivated  mind,  a  r 
mental  training,  a  sound  education,  we  mean  a  state  of  1 


14  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

mind  by  which  we  shall  become  more  clear  of  our  condi- 
tion, of  our  powers,  of  our  duties  towards  our  fellows,  of 
our  true  happiness,  by  which  we  may  make  ourselves 
better  citizens  and  better  men — more  civilised,  in  short. 
The  preceding  studies  have  been  but  a  preparation. 

I  They  have  been  only  to  strengthen  the  mind,  and  give  it 
material  for  the  true  work  of  education — the  inculcation 
of  human  duty. 

All  knowledge  is  imperfect,  we  may  almost  say  mean- 
]  ingless,  unless  it  tends  to  give  us  sounder  notions  of 
I  our  human  and  social  interests.  What  we  need  are 
clear  principles  about  the  moral  nature  of  man  as  a 
social  being ;  about  the  elements  of  human  society  ; 
about  the  nature  and  capacities  of  the  understanding. 
We  want  landmarks  to  guide  us  in  our  search  after 
worthy  guides,  or  true  principles  for  social  or  political 
action.  Human  nature  is  unlike  inorganic  nature  in 
this,  that  its  varieties  are  greater,  and  that  it  shows  con- 
tinual change.  The  earth  rolls  round  the  sun  in  the 
same  orbit  now  as  in  infinite  ages  past ;  but  man  moves 
forward  in  a  variable  line  of  progress.  Age  after  age 
develops  into  new  phases.  It  is  a  study  of  life,  of 
growth,  of  variety.  One  generation  shows  one  faculty 
of  human  nature  in  a  striking  degree;  the  next  exhibits 
a  different  power.  All,  it  is  true,  leave  their  mark 
upon  all  succeeding  generations,  and  civilisation  flows 
on  like  a  vast  river,  gathering  up  the  waters  of  its  tribu- 
tary streams.  Hence  it  is  that  civilisation,  being  not  a 
fixed  or  lifeless  thing,  cannot  be  studied  as  a  fixed  or 
lifeless  subject.  We  can  see  it  only  in  its  movement 
and  its  growth.  Except  for  eclipses,  some  conjunctions 
of  planets,  and  minor  changes,  one  year  is  as  good  as 
another  to  the  astronomer ;  but  it  is  not  so  to  the 
political  observer.  He  must  watch  successions,  and  a 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  15 

wide  field,  and  compare  a  long  series  of  events.  Hence 
it  is  that  in  all  political,  all  social,  all  human  questions 
whatever,  history  is  the  main  resource  of  the  inquirer. 

To  know  what  is  most  really  natural  to  man  as  a 
social  being,  man  must  be  looked  at  as  he  appears  in  a 
succession  of  ages,  and  in  very  various  conditions.  To 
learn  the  strength  or  scope  of  all  his  capacities  together, 
he  must  be  judged  in  those  successive  periods  in  which 
each  in  turn  was  best  brought  out.  Let  no  one  suppose 
that  he  will  find  all  the  human  institutions  and  faculties 
equally  well  developed,  and  all  in  their  due  .proportion 
and  order,  by  simply  looking  at  the  state  of  civilisation 
now  actually  around  us.  Is  it  not  a  monstrous  assump- 
tion that  this  world  of  to-day,  so  full  of  misery  and 
discontent,  strife  and  despair,  ringing  with  cries  of  pain 
and  cries  for  aid,  can  really  embody  forth  to  us  com- 
plete and  harmonious  man?  Are  there  no  faculties 
within  him  yet  fettered,  no  good  instincts  stifled,  no 
high  yearnings  marred  ?  Have  we  in  this  year  reached 
the  pinnacle  of  human  perfection,  lost  nothing  that  we 
once  had,  gained  all  that  we  can  gain  ?  Surely,  by  the 
hopes  within  us,  No !  But  what  is  missing  may  often 
be  seen  in  the  history  of  the  past.  There,  in  the  long 
struggle  of  man  upwards,  we  may  watch  Humanity  in 
various  moods,  and  see  some  now  forgotten  power, 
capacity,  or  art  yet  destined  to  good  service  in  the 
future.  One  by  one  we  may  light  on  the  missing  links 
in  the  chain  which  connects  all  races  and  all  ages  in 
one,  or  gather  up  the  broken  threads  that  must  yet  be 
woven  into  the  complex  fabric  of  life. 

There  is  another  side  on  which  history  is  still  more 
necessary  as  a  guide  to  consistent  and  rational  action. 
We  need  to  know  not  merely  what  the  essential  qualities 
of  civilisation  and  of  our  social  nature  really  are ;  but 


16  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

we  require  to  know  the  general  course  in  which  they 
are  tending.  The  more  closely  we  look  at  it,  the  more 
distinctly  we  see  that  progress  moves  in  a  clear  and 
definite  path ;  the  development  of  man  is  not  a  casual 
\  or  arbitrary  motion  :  it  moves  in  a  regular  and  con- 
sistent plan.  Each  part  is  unfolded  in  due  order — the 
whole  expanding  like  a  single  plant.  More  and  more 
steadily  we  see  each  age  working  out  the  gifts  of  the 
last  and  transmitting  its  labours  to  the  next.  More 
and  more  certain  is  our  sense  of  being  strong  only  as 
we  wisely  use  the  materials  and  follow  in  the  track  pro- 
vided by  the  efforts  of  mankind.  Everything  proves 
how  completely  that  influence  surrounds  us.  Take  our 
material  existence  alone.  The  earth's  surface  has.  been 
made,  as  we  know  it,  mainly  by  man.  It  would  be 
uninhabitable  by  numbers  but  for  the  long  labours  of 
those  who  cleared  its  primeval  forests,  drained  its 
swamps,  first  tilled  its  rank  soil.  All  the  inventions  on 
which  we  depend  for  existence,  the  instruments  we 
use,  were  slowly  worked  out  by  the  necessities  of  man 
in  the  childhood  of  the  race.  We  can  only  modify 
or  add  to  these.  We  could  not  discard  all  existing 
machines  and  construct  an  entirely  new  set  of  industrial 
implements. 

Take  our  political  existence.  There  again  we  are 
equally  confined  in  limits.  Our  country  as  a  political 
whole  has  been  formed  for  us  by  a  long  series  of  wars, 
struggles,  and  common  efforts.  We  could  not  refashion 
England,  or  divide  it  anew,  if  we  tried  for  a  century. 
Our  great  towns,  our  great  roads,  the  local  administra- 
tions of  our  counties,  were  sketched  out  for  us  by  the 
Romans  fifteen  centuries  since.  Could  we  undo  it  if 
we  tried,  and  make  London  a  country  village,  or  turn 
Birmingham  into  the  metropolis  ?  Some  people  think 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  I/ 

they  could  abolish  some  great  institution,  such  as  the 
House  of  Lords ;  but  few  reformers  in  this  country 
have  proposed  to  abolish  the  entire  British  Consti- 
tution. For  centuries  we  endured  an  archaic  law  of 
real  property.  Such  as  it  was,  it  was  made  for  us  by 
our  feudal  ancestors  misreading  Roman  texts.  Turn 
whichever  way  we  will,  we  shall  find  our  political 
systems,  laws,  and  administrations  to  have  been  pro- 
vided for  us. 

The  same  holds  good  even  more  strongly  in  all  moral 
and  intellectual  questions.  Are  we  to  suppose  that 
whilst  our  daily  life,  our  industry,  our  laws,  our  customs, 
are  controlled  by  the  traditions  and  materials  of  the 
past,  -our  thoughts,  our  habits  of  mind,  our  beliefs,  our 
moral  sense,  our  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  our  hopes  and 
aspirations,  are  not  just  as  truly  formed  by  the  civili- 
sation in  which  we  have  been  reared  ?  We  are  indeed 
able  to  transform  it,  to  develop  it,  and  to  give  it  new 
life  and  action  ;  but  we  can  only  do  so  as  we  under- 
stand it.  Without  this  all  efforts,  reforms,  and  revolu- 
tions are  in  vain.  A  change  is  made,  but  a  few  years 
pass  over,  and  all  the  old  causes  reappear.  There  was 
some  unnoticed  power  which  was  not  touched,  and  it 
returns  in  full  force.  Take  an  instance  from  our  own 
history.  Cromwell  and  his  Ironsides,  who  made  the 
great  English  Revolution,  swept  away  Monarchy,  and 
Church,  and  Peers,  and  thought  they  were  gone  for 
ever.  Their  great  chief  dead,  the  old  system  returned 
like  a  tide,  and  ended  in  the  orgies  of  Charles  and 
James.  The  Catholic  Church  has  been,  as  it  is  sup- 
posed, staggering  in  its  last  agonies  now  for  many 
centuries.  Luther  believed  he  had  crushed  it.  Long 
before  his  time  it  seemed  nothing  but  a  lifeless  mass  of 
corruption.  Pope  after  Pope  has  been  driven  into  exile. 

B 


1 8  T1IK    MKAXING    OF    HISTORY 

Four  or  five  times  has  the  Church  seemed  utterly 
crushed.  And  yet  here  in  this  nineteenth  century,  it 
puts  forth  all  its  old  pretensions,  and  covers  its  old 
territory. 

In  the  great  French  Revolution  it  seemed,  for  once, 
that  all  extant  institutions  had  been  swept  away.  That 
devouring  fire  seemed  to  have  burnt  the  growth  of  ages 
to  the  very  root  Yet  a  few  years  pass,  and  all  reappear 
— Monarchy,  Church,  Peers,  Jesuits,  Empire,  and  Prae- 
torian guards.  Again  and  again  they  are  overthrown. 
Again  and  again  they  rise  in  greater  pomp  and  pride. 
They  who,  with  courage,  energy,  and  enthusiasm  too 
seldom  imitated,  sixty  years  ago  carried  the  Reform  of 
Parliament  and  swept  away  with  a  strong  hand  abuse 
and  privilege,  believed  that  a  new  era  was  opening  for 
their  country.  What  would  they  think  now  ?  When 
they  abolished  rotten  boroughs,  and  test  acts,  and  cur- 
tailed expenditure,  little  did  they  think  that  sixty 
years  would  find  their  descendants  wrangling  about 
Church  Establishments,  appealing  to  the  House  of 
Lords  as  a  bulwark  of  freedom,  and  spending  ninety 
millions  a  year.  The  experience  of  every  one  who  was 
ever  engaged  in  any  public  movement  whatever  reminds 
him  that  every  step  made  in  advance  seems  too  often 
wrung  back  from  him  by  some  silent  and  unnoticed 
power  ;  he  has  felt  enthusiasm  give  way  to  despair,  and 
hopes  become  nothing  but  recollections. 

What  is  this  unseen  power  which  seems  to  undo 
the  best  human  efforts,  as  if  it  were  some  overbearing 
weight  against  which  no  man  can  long  struggle  ?  What 
is  this  ever-acting  force  which  seems  to  revive  the  dead, 
to  restore  what  we  destroy,  to  renew  forgotten  watch- 
words, exploded  fallacies,  discredited  doctrines,  and  con- 
demned institutions  ;  against  which  enthusiasm,  intel- 


THE   USE  OF   HISTORY  19 

lect,  truth,  high  purpose,  and  self-devotion  seem  to  beat 
themselves  to  death  in  vain  ?  It  is  the  Past.  It  is  the 
accumulated  wills  and  works  of  all  mankind  around  us 
and  before  us.  It  is  civilisation.  It  is  that  power  which 
to  understand  is  strength,  which  to  repudiate  is  weak- 
ness. Let  us  not  think  that  there  can  be  any  real  pro- 
gress made  which  is  not  based  on  a  sound  knowledge 
of  the  living  institutions  and  the  active  wants  of  man-  <* 


kind.  If  we  can  only  act  on  nature  so  far  as  we 
its  laws,  we  can  only  influence  society  so  far  as  we 
understand  its  elements  and  ways.  Let  us  not  delude 
ourselves  into  thinking  that  new  principles  of  policy  or 
social  action  can  be  created  by  themselves  or  can  recon- 
struct society  about  us.  Those  rough  maxims,  which 
we  are  wont  to  dignify  by  the  name  of  principles,  may 
be,  after  all,  only  crude  formulas  and  phrases  without 
life  or  power.  Only  when  they  have  been  tested, 
analysed,  and  compared  with  other  phases  of  social 
life,  can  we  be  certain  that  they  are  immutable  truths. 
Nothing  but  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  social  system, 
based  upon  a  regular  study  of  its  growth,  can  give  us 
the  power  we  require  to  affect  it.  For  this  end  we  need 
one  thing  above  all  —  we  need  history. 

It  may  be  said  —  all  this  may  be  very  useful  for  states- 
men, or  philosophers,  or  politicians  ;  but  what  is  the  use 
of  this  to  the  bulk  of  the  people  ?  They  are  not  engaged 
in  solving  political  questions.  The  bulk  of  the  people, 
if  they  are  seeking  to  live  the  lives  of  rational  and 
useful  .citizens,  if  they  only  wish  to  do  their  duty  by 
their  neighbours,  are  really  and  truly  politicians.  They 
are  solving  political  problems,  and  are  affecting  society 
very  deeply.  A  man  does  not  need  even  to  be  a  vestry- 
man, he  need  not  even  have  one  out  of  the  500,000 
votes  for  London,  in  order  to  exercise  very  great 


20  THE    MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

political  influence.  A  man,  provided  he  lives  like  an 
honest,  thoughtful,  truth-speaking  citizen,  is  a  power 
in  the  state.  He  is  helping  to  form  that  which  rules 
the  state,  which  rules  statesmen,  and  is  above  kings, 
parliaments,  or  ministers.  He  is  forming  public  opinion. 
It  is  on  this,  a  public  opinion,  wise,  thoughtful,  and 
consistent,  that  the  destinies  of  our  country  rest,  and 
not  on  acts  of  parliament,  or  movements,  or  institu- 
tions. 

It  is  sheer  presumption  to  attempt  to  remodel  exist- 
ing institutions,  without  the  least  knowledge  how  they 
were  formed,  or  whence  they  grew  ;  to  deal  with  social 
questions  without  a  thought  how  society  arose  ;  to  con- 
struct a  social  creed  without  an  idea  of  fifty  creeds 
which  have  risen  and  vanished  before.  Few  men 
would,  intentionally,  attempt  so  much  ;  but  many  do  it 
unconsciously.  They  think  they  are  not  statesmen,  or 
teachers,  or  philosophers  ;  but,  in  one  sense,  they  are. 
In  all  human  affairs  there  is  this  peculiar  quality.  They 
are  the  work  of  the  combined  labours  of  many.  No 
statesman  or  teacher  can  do  anything  alone.  He  must 
have  the  minds  of  those  he  is  to  guide  prepared  for  him. 
They  must  concur,  or  he  is  powerless.  In  reality,  he  is 
but  the  expression  of  their  united  wills  and  thoughts. 
Hence  it  is,  I  say,  that  all  men  need,  in  some  sense,  the 
knowledge  and  the  judgment  of  the  statesman  and  the 

X  social  teacher.  Progress  is  but  the  result  of  our  joint 
public  opinion  ;  and  for  progress  that  opinion  must  be 
enlightened.  '  He  only  destroys  who  can  replace.'  All 
other  progress  than  this — one  based  on  the  union  of 
many  minds  and  purposes,  and  a  true  conception  of  the 
future  and  the  past — is  transitory  and  delusive.  Those 
who  defy  this  power,  the  man,  the  party,  or  the  class 
who  forget  it,  will  be  beating  themselves  in  vain  against 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  21 

a  wall  ;  changing,  but  not  improving  ;  moving,  but  not 
advancing  ;  rolling,  as  the  poet  says  of  a  turbulent  city, 
like  a  sick  man  on  the  restless  bed  of  pain. 

The  value  of  a  knowledge  of  history  being  admitted, 
there  follows  the  complicated  problem  of  how  to  acquire 
it.  There  are  oceans  of  facts,  mountains  of  books. 
This  is  the  question  before  us.  It  is  possible  to  know 
something  of  history  without  a  pedantic  erudition.  Let 
a  man  ask  himself  always  what  he  wants  to  know. 
Something  of  man's  social  nature ;  something  of  the 
growth  of  civilisation.  He  needs  to  understand  some- 
thing of  the  character  of  the  great  races  and  systems  of 
mankind.  Let  him  ask  himself  what  the  long  ages  of 
the  early  empires  did  for  mankind ;  whether  they  estab- 
lished or  taught  anything  ;  if  fifty  centuries  of  human 
skill,  labour,  and  thought  were  wasted  like  an  autumn 
leaf.  Let  him  ask  himself  what  the  Greeks  taught  or 
discovered :  why  the  Romans  were  a  noble  race,  and 
how  they  printed  their  footmarks  so  deeply  on  the  earth. 
Let  him  ask  what  was  the  original  meaning  and  life  of 
those  great  feudal  institutions  of  chivalry  and  church, 
of  which  we  see  only  the  remnants.  Let  him  ask  what 
was  the  strength,  the  weakness,  and  the  meaning  of  the 
great  revolution  of  Cromwell,  or  the  great  revolution  in 
France.  A  man  may  learn  much  true  history,  without 
any  very  ponderous  books.  Let  him  go  to  the  museums 
and  see  the  pictures,  the  statues,  and  buildings  of 
Egyptian  and  Assyrian  times,  and  try  to  learn  what 
was  the  state  of  society  under  which  men  in  the  far 
East  reached  so  high  a  pitch  of  industry,  knowledge, 
and  culture,  three  thousand  years  before  our  savage 
ancestors  had  learned  to  use  the  plough.  A  man  may 
go  to  one  of  our  Gothic  cathedrals,  and,  seeing  there  the 
stupendous  grandeur  of  its  outline,  the  exquisite  grace 


22  TIIK    MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

of  its  design,  the  solemn  expression  upon  the  faces  of 
its  old  carved  or  painted  saints,  kings,  and  priests,  may 
ask  himself  if  the  men  who  built  that  could  be  utterly 
barbarous,  false-hearted,  and  tyrannical ;  or  if  the  power 
which  could  bring  out  such  noble  qualities  of  the  human 
mind  and  heart  must  not  have  left  its  trace  upon  man- 
kind. 

It  does  not  need  many  books  to  know  something  of 
the  life  of  the  past.  A  man  who  has  mastered  the  lives 
in  old  Plutarch  knows  not  a  little  of  Greek  and  Roman 
history.  A  man  who  has  caught  the  true  spirit  of  the 
Middle  Ages  knows  something  of  feudalism  and  chivalry. 
But  is  this  enough?  Far  from  it.  These  desultory 
thoughts  must  be  connected.  These  need  to  be  com- 
bined into  a  whole,  and  combined  and  used  for  a  purpose. 
Above  all,  we  must  look  on  history  as  a  whole,  trying 
to  find  what  each  age  and  race  has  contributed  to  the 
common  stock,  and  how  and  why  each  followed  in  its 
place.  Looked  at  separately,  all  is  confusion  and  con- 
tradiction :  looked  at  as  a  whole,  a  common  purpose 
appears.  The  history  of  the  human  race  is  the  history 
of  a  growth.  It  can  no  more  be  taken  to  pieces  than 
the  human  frame  can  be  taken  to  pieces.  Who  would 
think  of  making  anything  of  the  body  without  knowing 
whether  it  possessed  a  circulation,  a  nervous  system,  or 
a  skeleton.  History  is  a  living  whole.  If  one  organ  be 
removed,  it  is  nothing  but  a  lifeless  mass.  What  we 
have  to  find  in  it  is  the  relation  and  connection  of  the 
parts.  We  must  learn  how  age  develops  into  age,  how 
country  reacts  upon  country,  how  thought  inspires 
action,  and  action  modifies  thought. 

Once  conceive  that  all  the  greater  periods  of  history 
have  had  a  real  and  necessary  part  to  fulfil  in  creating 
the  whole,  and  we  shall  have  done  more  to  understand 


THE   USE   OF   HISTORY  23 

it  than  if  we  had  studied  some  portion  of  it  with  a  micro- 
scope. Once  feel  that  all  the  parts  are  needed  for  the 
whole,  and  the  difficulty  of  the  mass  of  materials  vanishes. 
We  shall  come  to  regard  it  as  a  composition  or  a  work 
of  art  which  cannot  be  broken  up  into  fragments  at 
pleasure.  We  should  as  soon  think  of  dividing  it  as  of 
taking  a  figure  out  of  a  great  picture,  or  a  passage  out 
of  a  piece  of  music.  We  all  know  those  noble  choruses 
of  Handel,  such  as  that  '  Unto  us  a  child  is  born,'  and 
have  heard  the  opening  notes  begin  simple,  subdued, 
and  slow,  until  they  are  echoed  back  in  deeper  tones, 
choir  answering  to  choir,  voice  joining  in  with  voice, 
growing  fuller  and  stronger  with  new  and  varying  bursts 
of  melody,  until  the  whole  stream  of  song  swells  into 
one  vast  tide  of  harmony,  and  rolls  on  abounding,  wave 
upon  wave  in  majestic  exultation  and  power.  Some- 
thing like  this  complex  harmony  is  seen  in  the  gathering 
parts  of  human  history,  age  taking  up  the  falling  notes 
from  age,  race  joining  with  race  in  answering  strain, 
until  the  separate  parts  are  mingled  in  one,  and  pour  on 
in  one  movement  together. 

There  is  one  mode  in  which  history  may  be  most 
easily,  perhaps  most  usefully,  approached.  Let  him  who 
desires  to  find  profit  in  it,  begin  by  knowing  something 
of  the  lives  of  great  men.  Not  of  those  most  talked 
about,  not  of  names  chosen  at  hazard ;  but  of  the  real 
great  ones  who  can  be  shown  to  have  left  their  mark 
upon  distant  ages.  Know  their  lives,  not  merely  as 
interesting  studies  of  character,  or  as  persons  seen  in  a 
drama,  but  as  they  represent  and  influence  their  age. 
Not  for  themselves  only  must  we  know  them,  but  as  the 
expression  and  types  of  all  that  is  noblest  around  them. 
Let  us  know  those  whom  all  men  cannot  fail  to  recog- 
nise as  great — the  Caesars,  the  Charlemagnes,  the  Alfreds, 


24  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

the  Cromvvells,  great  in  themselves,  but  greater  as  the 
centre  of  the  efforts  of  thousands. 

We  have  done  much  towards  understanding  the  past 
when  we  have  learned  to  value  and  to  honour  such  men. 
It  is  almost  better  to  know  nothing  of  history  than  to 
know  with  the  narrow  coldness  of  a  pedant  a  record 
which  ought  to  fill  us  with  emotion  and  reverence.  Our 
closest  friends,  our  earliest  teachers,  our  parents  them- 
selves, are  not  more  truly  our  benefactors  than  they. 
To  them  we  owe  what  we  prize  most — country,  freedom, 
peace,  knowledge,  art,  thought,  and  higher  sense  of  right 
and  wrong.  What  a  tale  of  patience,  courage,  sacrifice, 
and  martyrdom  is  the  history  of  human  progress !  It 
affects  us  as  if  we  were  reading  in  the  diary  of  a  parent 
the  record  of  his  struggles  for  his  children.  For  us  they 
toiled,  endured,  bled,  and  died  ;  that  we  by  their  labour 
might  have  rest,  by  their  thoughts  might  know,  by  their 
death  might  live  happily.  For  whom  did  these  men 
work,  if  not  for  us  ?  Not  for  themselves,  when  they 
gave  up  peace,  honour,  life,  reputation  itself — as  when 
the  great  French  republican  exclaimed,  '  May  my  name 
be  accursed,  so  that  France  be  free  ! '  not  for  themselves 
they  worked,  but  for  their  cause,  for  their  fellows,  for  us. 
Not  that  they  might  have  fame,  but  that  they  might 
leave  the  world  better  than  they  found  it.  This  sup- 
ported Milton  in  his  old  age,  blind,  poor,  and  dishonoured, 
when  he  poured  out  his  spirit  in  solitude,  full  of  grace, 
tenderness,  and  hope,  amidst  the  ruin  of  all  he  loved 
and  the  obscene  triumph  of  all  he  despised.  It  sup- 
ported Dante,  the  poet  of  Florence,  when  an  outlaw  and 
an  exile  he  was  cast  off  by  friends  and  countrymen,  and 
wandered  about  begging  his  bread  from  city  to  city, 
pondering  the  great  thoughts  which  live  throughout  all 
Europe.  This  spirit,  too,  was  in  one,  the  noblest  victim 


THE   USE  OF   HISTORY  25 

of  the  French  Revolution,  the  philosopher  Condorcet ; 
who,  condemned,  hunted  to  death,  devoted  the  last  few 
days  of  his  life  to  serene  thought  of  the  past,  and,  whilst 
the  pursuers  were  on  his  track,  wrote  in  his  hiding-place 
that  noble  sketch  of  the  progress  of  the  human  race. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY 

LET  us  now  try  to  sketch  the  outline  of  this  story,  link 
century  to  century,  continent  to  continent,  and  judge 
the  share  each  has  in  the  common  work  of  civilisation. 
To  do  so,  we  must  go  back  to  ages  long  before  records 
began.  It  is  but  of  the  latter  and  the  shorter  portion  of 
the  duration  of  progress,  that  any  record  has  been  made 
or  preserved.  Yet  for  a  general  view,  sufficient  materials 
of  certain  knowledge  exist.  If  we  write  the  biography 
of  a  man  we  do  not  begin  with  the  year  of  his  life  in 
which  his  diary  opens  ;  we  seek  to  know  his  parentage, 
education,  and  early  association.  To  understand  him 
we  must  do  so.  So,  too,  the  biography  of  mankind  must 
not  confine  itself  to  the  eras  of  chronological  tables,  and 
of  recorded  events.  In  all  large  instances  the  civilisation 
of  an  epoch  or  a  people  has  a  certain  unity  in  it — their 
philosophy,  their  policy,  their  habits,  and  their  religion 
must  more  or  less  accord,  and  all  depend  at  last  upon 
the  special  habit  of  their  minds.  It  is  this  central  form 
of  belief  which  determines  all  the  rest.  Separately  no 
item  which  makes  up  their  civilisation  as  a  whole,  can 
be  long  or  seriously  changed.  It  is  what  a  man  believes, 
which  makes  him  act  as  he  does.  Thus  shall  we  see 
that,  as  their  reasoning  powers  develop,  all  else  develops 
likewise ;  their  science,  their  art  break  up  or  take  new 
forms  ;  their  system  of  society  expands  ;  their  life,  their 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  2J 

morality,  and  their  religion  gradually  are  dissolved  and 
reconstructed. 

Let  us,  then,  place  ourselves  back  in  imagination  at  a 
period  when  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth  was  quite 
unlike  what  it  is  now.  Let  us  suppose  it  as  it  was  after  the 
last  great  geologic  change — the  greater  portion  of  its  area 
covered  with  primeval  forests,  vast  swamps,  dense  jungles, 
moors,  prairies,  and  arid  deserts.  We  must  not  suppose 
that  the  earth  had  always  the  same  face  as  now.  Such 
as  it  is,  it  has  been  made  by  man  ;  the  rich  pasturages 
and  open  plains  have  all  been  created  by  his  toil — even 
the  grain,  and  fruits,  and  flowers  that  grow  upon  its  soil 
have  been  made  what  they  are  by  his  care.  Their 
originals  were  what  we  now  should  regard  as  small,  value- 
less, insipid  berries  or  weeds.  As  yet  the  now  teeming 
valleys  of  the  great  rivers,  such  as  the  Nile,  or  the 
Euphrates,  or  the  Po,  were  wildernesses  or  swamps. 
The  rich  meadows  of  our  own  island  were  marshes  ; 
where  its  cornfields  stand  now,  were  trackless  forests  or 
salt  fens.  Such  countries  as  Holland  were  swept  over  by 
every  tide  of  the  sea,  and  such  countries  as  Switzerland, 
and  Norway,  and  large  parts  of  America,  or  Russia, 
were  submerged  beneath  endless  pine-woods.  And 
through  these  forests  and  wastes  ranged  countless  races 
of  animals,  many,  doubtless,  long  extinct,  in  variety  and 
numbers  more  than  we  can  even  conceive. 

Where  in  this  terrible  world  was  man?  Scanty  in 
number,  confined  to  a  few  favourable  spots,  dispersed, 
and  alone,  man  sustained  a  precarious  existence,  not  yet 
the  lord  of  creation,  inferior  to  many  quadrupeds  in 
strength,  only  just  superior  to  them  in  mind — nothing 
but  the  first  of  the  brutes.  As  are  the  lowest  of  all 
savages  now,  no  doubt  even  lower,  man  once  was.  Con- 
ceive what  Robinson  Crusoe  would  have  been  had  his 


28  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

island  been  a  dense  jungle  overrun  with  savage  beasts, 
without  his  gun,  or  his  knife,  or  his  knowledge,  with 
nothing  but  his  human  hand  and  his  human  brain. 
Ages  have  indeed  passed  since  then — at  least  some 
twenty  thousand  years — possibly  twice  or  thrice  twenty 
thousand.  But  they  should  not  be  quite  forgotten,  and 
all  recollection  perish  of  that  dark  time  when  man 
waged  a  struggle  for  life  or  death  with  nature.  Let  us 
be  just  to  those  who  fought  that  fight  with  the  brutes, 
hunted  down  and  exterminated  step  by  step  the  races 
too  dangerous  to  man,  and  cleared  the  ground  of  these 
monstrous  rivals.  Every  nation  has  its  primeval  heroes, 
whose  hearts  quailed  not  before  the  lion  or  the  dragon  : 
its  Nimrod,  a  mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord  ;  its 
Hercules,  whose  club  smote  the  serpent  Hydra ;  its 
Odin,  who  slew  monsters.  The  forests,  moreover,  had  to 
be  cleared.  Step  by  step  man  won  his  way  into  the 
heart  of  those  dark  jungles  ;  slowly  the  rank  vegetation 
was  swept  off,  here  and  there  a  space  was  cleared,  here 
and  there  a  plain  was  formed  which  left  a  patch  of 
habitable  soil. 

Everywhere  man  began  as  a  hunter,  without  imple- 
ments, without  clothing,  without  homes,  perhaps  without 
the  use  of  fire.  Man's  supremacy  over  the  brutes  was 
first  asserted  when  his  mind  taught  him  how  to  make  the 
rude  bow,  or  the  flint  knife,  or  to  harden  clay  or  wood 
by  heat.  But  not  only  were  all  the  arts  and  uses  of  life 
yet  to  be  found,  but  all  the  human  institutions  had  to  be 
formed.  As  yet  language,  family,  marriage,  property, 
tribe,  were  not,  or  only  were  in  germ.  A  few  cries 
assisted  by  gesture,  a  casual  association  of  the  sexes,  a 
dim  trace  of  parentage  or  brotherhood,  a  joint  tenure  by 
those  who  dwelt  together,  were  all  that  was.  Language, 
as  we  know  it,  has  been  slowly  built  up,  stage  after  stage, 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  29 

by  the  instinct  of  the  entire  race.  Necessity  led  to  new 
sounds,  which  use  developed ;  sounds  became  words, 
words  were  worked  into  sentences,  and  half-brutish 
cries  grew  into  intelligible  speech.  Our  earliest  teachers 
were  those  whose  higher  instincts  first  taught  men  to 
unite  in  permanent  pairs,  to  group  the  children  of  one 
home,  to  form  into  parties  and  companies,  to  clothe 
themselves,  and  put  checks  upon  the  violent  passions. 
They  who  first  drew  savage  man  out  of  the  life  of  un- 
bridled instinct  and  brutal  loneliness  ;  who  founded  the 
practices  of  personal  decency  and  cleanliness  ;  who  first 
taught  men  to  be  faithful  and  tender  to  the  young  and 
the  old,  the  woman,  and  the  mother ;  who  first  brought 
these  wild  hunters  together,  and  made  them  trust  each 
other  and  their  chief — these  were  the  first  great  bene- 
factors of  mankind  ;  this  is  the  beginning  of  the  history 
of  the  race. 

When  such  was  the  material  and  moral  condition  of 
man,  what  was  his  intellectual  condition  ?  what  were  his 
knowledge,  his  worship,  and  his  religion  ?  Turn  to  the 
earliest  traditions  of  men,  to  the  simple  ideas  of  child- 
hood, and  especially  to  the  savage  tribes  we  know,  and 
we  have  the  answer.  Man's  intellect  was  far  feebler 
than  his  activity  or  his  feelings.  He  knew  nothing,  he 
rested  in  the  first  imagination.  He  reasoned  on  nothing, 
he  supposed  everything.  He  looked  upon  nature,  and 
saw  it  full  of  life,  motion,  and  strength.  He  knew  what 
struggles  he  had  with  it ;  he  felt  it  often  crush  him,  he 
felt  he  could  often  mould  it ;  and  he  thought  that  all, 
brutes,  plants,  rivers,  storms,  forests,  and  mountains, 
were  powers,  living,  feeling,  and  acting  like  himself. 
Do  not  the  primeval  legends,  the  fairy  tales  of  all 
nations,  show  it  to  us  ?  Does  not  the  child  punish  its 
doll,  and  the  savage  defy  the  thunder,  and  the  horse 


30  THE    MEANING   OF    HISTORY 

start  at  a  gnarled  oak  swaying  its  boughs  like  arms  in 
the  wind  ?  Man  then  looked  out  upon  nature,  and 
thought  it  a  living  thing — a  simple  belief  which  answered 
all  questions.  He  knew  nothing  of  matter,  or  elements, 
or  laws.  His  celestial  and  his  terrestrial  philosophy  was 
summed  up  in  this — things  act  so  because  they  choose. 
He  never  asked  why  [the  sun  or  moon  rose  and  set. 
They  were  bright  beings  who  walked  their  own  paths 
when  and  as  they  pleased.  He  never  thought  why  a 
volcano  smoked,  or  a  river  overflowed  ;  or  thought  only 
that  the  one  was  wroth  and  roared,  and  that  the  other 
had  started  in  fury  from  his  bed. 

And  what  was  his  religion  ?  What  could  it  but  be  ? 
Affection  for  the  fruits  and  flowers  of  the  earth — dread 
and  prostration  before  the  terrible  in  nature — worship 
of  the  bright  sun,  or  sheltering  grove,  or  mountain — in  a 
word,  the  adoration  of  nature,  the  untutored  impulse 
towards  the  master  powers  around.  As  yet  nothing 
was  fixed,  nothing  common.  Each  worshipped  in  love 
or  dread  what  most  seized  his  fancy ;  each  family  had 
its  own  fetishes  ;  each  tribe  its  stones  or  mountains  ; 
often  it  worshipped  its  own  dead — friends  who  had 
begun  a  new  existence :  who  appeared  to  them  in 
dreams,  and  were  thought  to  haunt  the  old  familiar 
spots.  Such  was  their  religion,  the  unguided  faith  of 
childhood,  exaggerating  all  the  feelings  and  sympathies, 
stimulating  love,  and  hatred,  and  movement,  and  de- 
struction, but  leaving  everything  vague,  giving  no  fixity, 
no  unity,  no  permanence.  In  such  a  condition,  doubt- 
less, man  passed  through  many  thousand  years :  tribe 
struggling  with  tribe  in  endless  battles  for  their  hunting 
grounds  ;  often,  we  may  fear,  devouring  their  captives  ; 
without  any  fixed  abode,  or  definite  association,  or 
material  progress  ;  yet  gradually  forming  the  various  arts 


THE   CONNECTION    OF   HISTORY  31 

and  institutions  of  life,  gradually  learning  the  use  of 
clothes,  of  metals,  of  implements,  of  speech — a  race 
whose  life  depended  solely  upon  the  chase,  whose  only 
society  was  the  tribe,  whose  religion  was  the  worship  of 
natural  objects. 

In  this  first  struggle  with  nature,  man  was  not  long 
quite  alone.  Slowly  he  won  over  to  his  side  one  or  two 
of  the  higher  animals.  This  wonderful  victory  assured 
his  ultimate  ascendancy.  The  dog  was  won  from  his 
wolf-like  state  to  join  and  aid  in  the  chase.  The  horse 
bowed  his  strength  in  generous  submission  to  a  master. 
We  do  not  reflect  enough  upon  the  efforts  that  this  cost 
We  are  forgetful  of  the  wonders  of  patience,  gentleness, 
sympathy,  sagacity,  and  nerve,  which  were  required  for 
the  first  domestication  of  animals.  We  may  reflect  upon 
the  long  centuries  of  care  which  were  needed  to  change 
the  very  nature  of  these  noble  brutes,  without  whom  we 
should  indeed  be  helpless.  By  degrees  the  ox,  the  sheep, 
the  goat,  the  hog,  the  camel,  and  the  ass,  with  horse  and 
dog,  were  reared  by  man,  formed  part  of  his  simple 
family,  and  became  the  lower  portion  of  the  tribe.  Their 
very  natures,  their  external  forms,  were  changed.  Milk 
and  its  compounds  formed  the  basis  of  food.  The 
hunter's  life  became  less  precarious,  less  rambling,  less 
violent.  In  short,  the  second  great  stage  of  human 
existence  began,  and  pastoral  life  commenced. 

With  the  institution  of  pastoral — a  modified  form  of 
nomad — life,  a  great  advance  was  made  in  civilisation. 
Larger  tribes  could  now  collect,  for  there  was  now  no 
lack  of  food  ;  tribes  gathered  into  a  horde ;  something 
like  society  began.  It  had  its  leaders,  its  elders,  perhaps 
its  teachers,  poets,  and  wise  men.  Men  ceased  to  rove 
for  ever.  They  stayed  upon  a  favourable  pasture  for  long 
periods  together.  Next,  property — that  is,  instruments, 


32  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

valuables,  and  means  of  subsistence — began  ;  flocks  and 
herds  accumulated  ;  men  were  no  longer  torn  daily  by 
the  wants  of  hunger  ;  and  leisure,  repose,  and  peace  were 
possible.  The  women  were  relieved  from  the  crushing 
toil  of  the  past.  The  old  were  no  longer  abandoned  or 
neglected  through  want.  Reflection,  observation,  thought 
began ;  and  with  thought,  religion.  As  life  became 
more  fixed,  worship  became  less  vague  and  more 
specific.  Some  fixed,  great  powers  alone  were  adored, 
chiefly  the  host  of  heaven,  the  stars,  the  moon,  and  the 
great  sun  itself.  Then  some  elder,  freed  from  toil  or 
war,  meditating  on  the  world  around  him,  as  he  watched 
the  horde  start  forth  at  the  rising  of  the  sun,  the 
animals  awakening  and  nature  opening  beneath  his 
rays,  first  came  to  think  all  nature  moved  at  the  will 
of  that  sun  himself,  perhaps  even  of  some  mysterious 
power  of  whom  that  sun  was  but  the  image.  From 
this  would  rise  a  regular  worship  common  to  the  whole 
horde,  uniting  them  together,  explaining  their  course  of 
life,  stimulating  their  powers  of  thought. 

With  this  some  kind  of  knowledge  commenced. 
Their  vast  herds  and  flocks  needed  to  be  numbered, 
distinguished,  and  separated.  Arithmetic  began  ;  the 
mode  of  counting,  of  adding  and  subtracting,  was  slowly 
worked  out.  The  horde's  course,  also,  must  be  directed 
by  the  seasons  and  the  stars.  Hence  astronomy  began. 
The  course  of  the  sun  was  steadily  observed,  the  re- 
currence of  the  seasons  noted.  Slowly  the  first  ideas  of 
order,  regularity,  and  permanence  arose.  The  world 
was  no  longer  a  chaos  of  conflicting  forces.  The  earth 
had  its  stated  times,  governed  by  the  all-ruling  sun. 
Now,  too,  the  horde  had  a  permanent  existence.  Its 
old  men  could  remember  the  story  of  its  wanderings 
and  the  deeds  of  its  mighty  ones,  and  would  tell  them 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  33 

to  the  young  when  the  day  was  over.  Poetry,  narrative, 
and  history  had  begun.  Leisure  brought  the  use  of 
fresh  implements.  Metals  were  found  and  worked. 
The  loom  was  invented  ;  the  wheeled  car  came  into 
use  ;  the  art  of  the  smith,  the  joiner,  and  the  boat- 
builder.  New  arts  required  a  subdivision  of  labour,  and 
division  of  labour  required  orderly  rule.  Society  had 
begun.  A  greater  step  was  yet  at  hand.  Around 
some  sacred  mountain  or  grave,  in  some  more  favoured 
spot,  where  the  horde  would  longest  halt  or  oftenest 
return,  some  greater  care  to  clear  the  ground,  to  protect 
the  pasture,  and  to  tend  the  plants  was  shown  ;  some 
patches  of  soil  were  scratched  to  grow  some  useful 
grains,  some  wild  corn  ears  were  cultivated  into  wheat, 
the  earth  began  to  be  tilled.  Man  passed  into  the 
third  great  stage  of  material  existence,  and  agriculture 
began. 

Agriculture  once  commenced,  a  new  era  was  at  hand. 
Now  organised  society  was  possible.  We  must  regard 
this  stage  as  the  greatest  effort  towards  progress  ever 
accomplished  by  mankind.  We  must  remember  how 
much  had  to  be  learnt,  how  many  arts  had  to  be 
invented,  before  the  savage  hunter  could  settle  down 
into  the  peaceful,  the  provident,  and  the  intelligent 
husbandman.  What  is  all  our  vaunted  progress  to  this 
great  step  ?  What  are  all  our  boasted  inventions  com- 
pared with  the  first  great  discoveries  of  man,  the 
spinning-wheel  and  loom,  the  plough,  the  clay-vessel, 
the  wheel,  the  boat,  the  bow,  the  hatchet,  and  the  forge  ? 
Surely,  if  we  reflect,  our  inventions  are  chiefly  modes  of 
multiplying  or  saving  force ;  these  were  the  trans- 
formations of  substances,  or  the  interchange  of  force. 
Ours  are,  for  the  most  part,  but  expansions  of  the  first 
idea  ;  these  are  the  creations. 

c 


34  THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

Since  it  is  with  agriculture  solely  that  organised 
society  begins,  it  is  with  justice  that  the  origin  of 
civilisation  is  always  traced  to  those  great  plains  where 
alone  agriculture  was  then  possible.  It  was  in  the 
basins  of  the  great  Asian  rivers,  the  Euphrates,  the 
Tigris,  the  Indus,  the  Ganges,  the  Yang-tse-kiang,  and 
in  that  of  the  Nile,  that  fixed  societies  began.  There, 
where  irrigation  is  easy,  the  soil  rich,  the  country  open, 
cultivation  arose,  and  with  cultivation  of  the  soil  the 
accumulation  of  its  produce,  and,  with  more  easy 
sustenance,  leisure,  thought,  and  observation.  Use 
taught  man  to  distinguish  between  matter  and  life, 
man  and  brute,  thought  and  motion.  Men's  eyes  were 
opened,  and  they  saw  that  nature  was  not  alive,  and 
had  no  will.  They  watched  the  course  of  the  sun,  and 
saw  that  it  moved  in  fixed  ways.  They  watched  the 
sea,  and  saw  that  it  rose  and  fell  by  tides.  Then,  too, 
they  needed  knowledge  and  they  needed  teachers. 
They  needed  men  to  measure  their  fields,  their  barns, 
to  teach  them  to  build  strongly,  to  calculate  the  seasons 
for  them,  to  predict  the  signs  of  the  weather,  to  ex- 
pound the  will  of  the  great  powers  who  ruled  them. 
Thus  slowly  rose  the  notion  of  gods,  the  unseen  rulers 
of  these  powers  of  earth  and  sky — a  god  of  the  sea,  of 
the  river,  of  the  sky,  of  the  sun  ;  and  between  them  and 
their  gods  rose  the  first  priests,  the  ministers  and 
interpreters  of  their  will,  and  polytheism  and  theocracies 
began. 

Thus  simply  amidst  these  great  settled  societies  of 
the  plain  began  the  great  human  institution,  the 
priesthood — at  first  only  wiser  elders  who  had  some 
deeper  knowledge  of  the  arts  of  settled  life.  Gradually 
knowledge  advanced  ;  knowledge  of  the  seasons  and  of 
the  stars  or  of  astronomy,  of  enumeration  or  arithmetic, 


THE  CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  35 

of  measurement  or  geometry,  of  medicine  and  surgery, 
of  building,  of  the  arts,  of  music,  of  poetry ;  gradually 
this  knowledge  became  deposited  in  the  hands  of  a  few, 
was  accumulated  and  transmitted  from  father  to  son. 
The  intellect  asserted  its  power,  and  the  rule  over  a 
peaceful  and  industrious  race  slowly  passed  into  the 
hands  of  a  priesthood,  or  an  educated  and  sacred  class. 
These  were  the  men  who  founded  the  earliest  form 
of  civilised  existence  ;  the  most  complete,  the  most 
enduring,  the  most  consistent  of  all  human  societies, 
the  great  theocracies  or  religious  societies  of  Asia  and 
Egypt.  Thus  for  thousands  of  years  before  the  earliest 
records  of  history,  in  all  the  great  plains  of  Asia  and 
along  the  Nile,  nations  flourished  in  a  high  and  elaborate 
form  of  civilisation.  We  will  examine  one  only,  the 
best  known  to  us,  the  type,  the  earliest  and  the  greatest 
— the  Egyptian. 

The  task  to  be  accomplished  was  immense.  It  was 
nothing  less  than  the  foundation  of  permanent  and 
organised  society.  Till  this  was  done  all  was  in  danger. 
All  knowledge  might  be  lost,  the  arts  might  perish,  the 
civil  community  might  break  up.  Hitherto  there  had 
been  no  permanence,  no  union,  no  system.  What  was 
needed  was  to  form  the  intellectual  and  material  frame- 
work of  a  fixed  nation.  And  this  the  Egyptian  priesthood 
undertook.  The  spot  was  favourable  to  the  attempt. 
In  that  great,  rich  plain,  walled  off  on  all  sides  by  the 
desert  or  by  the  sea,  it  was  possible  to  found  a  society 
at  once  industrial,  peaceful,  and  settled.  They  needed 
judges  to  direct  them,  teachers  to  instruct  them,  men  of 
science  to  help  them,  governors  to  rule  them,  preachers 
to  admonish  them,  physicians  to  heal  them,  artists  to 
train  them,  and  priests  to  sacrifice  for  them.  To  meet 
these  wants  a  special  order  of  men  spontaneously  arose, 


36  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

by  whose  half-conscious  efforts  a  complete  system  of 
society  was  gradually  and  slowly  formed.  In  their 
hands  was  concentrated  the  whole  intellectual  product 
of  ages  ;  this  they  administered  for  the  common  good. 

Gradually  by  their  care  there  arose  a  system  of 
regular  industry.  To  this  end  they  divided  out  by 
their  superior  skill  all  the  arts  and  trades  of  life.  Each 
work  was  apportioned,  each  art  had  its  subordinate 
arts.  Then  as  a  mode  of  perpetuating  skill  in  crafts,  to 
insure  a  sound  apprenticeship  of  every  labour,  they 
caused  or  enabled  each  man's  work  to  become  here- 
ditary within  certain  broad  limits,  and  thus  created  or 
sanctioned  a  definite  series  of  castes.  To  give  sanction 
to  the  whole,  they  consecrated  each  labour,  and  made 
each  workman's  toil  a  part  of  his  religious  duty. 
Then  they  organised  a  scheme  of  general  education. 
They  provided  a  system  of  teaching  common  to  all, 
adapted  to  the  work  of  each.  They  provided  for  the 
special  education  of  the  sacred  class  in  the  whole 
circle  of  existing  knowledge ;  they  collected  observa- 
tions, they  treasured  up  discoveries,  and  recorded  events. 
Next  they  organised  a  system  of  government.  They 
established  property,  they  divided  out  the  land,  they 
set  up  landmarks,  they  devised  rules  for  its  tenure, 
they  introduced  law,  and  magistrates,  and  governors  ; 
provinces  were  divided  into  districts,  towns,*  and 
villages ;  violence  was  put  down,  a  strict  police  exer- 
cised, regular  taxes  imposed.  Next  they  organised 
a  system  of  morality  ;  the  social,  the  domestic,  and  the 
personal  duties  were  minutely  defined  ;  practices  re- 
lating to  health,  cleanliness,  and  temperance  were 
enforced  by  religious  obligations :  every  act  of  life, 
every  moment  of  existence,  was  made  a  part  of  sacred 
duty.  Lastly,  they  organised  national  life  by  a  vast 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  37 

system  of  common  religious  rites,  having  imposing 
ceremonies  which  awakened  the  imagination  and 
kindled  the  emotions,  bound  up  the  whole  community 
into  an  united  people,  and  gave  stability  to  their 
national  existence,  by  the  awful  sense  of  a  common 
and  mysterious  belief. 

If  we  want  to  know  what  such  a  system  of  life  was 
like,  let  us  go  into  some  museum  of  Egyptian  antiqui- 
ties, where  we  may  see  representations  of  their  mode  of 
existence  carved  upon  their  walls.  There  we  may  see 
nearly  all  the  arts  of  life  as  we  know  them — weaving 
and  spinning,  working  in  pottery,  glass-blowing,  building, 
carving,  and  painting  ;  ploughing,  sowing,  threshing,  and 
gathering  into  barns  ;  boating,  irrigation,  fishing,  wine- 
pressing,  dancing,  singing,  and  playing — a  vast  com- 
munity, in  short,  orderly,  peaceful,  and  intelligent  ; 
capable  of  gigantic  works  and  of  refined  arts,  before 
which  we  are  lost  in  wonder ;  a  civilised  community 
busy  and  orderly  as  a  hive  of  bees,  amongst  whom 
every  labour  and  function  was  arranged  in  perfect 
harmony  and  distinctness  :  all  this  may  be  seen  upon 
monuments  5000  years  old. 

Here,  then,  we  have  civilisation  itself.  All  the  arts 
of  life  had  been  brought  to  perfection,  and  indelibly 
implanted  on  the  mind  of  men  so  that  they  could  never 
be  utterly  lost.  All  that  constitutes  orderly  govern- 
ment, the  institutions  of  society,  had  been  equally 
graven  into  human  existence.  A  check  had  been 
placed  upon  the  endless  and  desultory  warfare  of 
tribes ;  and  great  nations  existed.  The  ideas  of 
domestic  life,  marriage,  filial  duty,  care  for  the  aged 
and  the  dead,  had  become  a  second  nature.  The 
wholesome  practices  of  social  life,  of  which  we  think 
so  lightly,  had  all  been  invented  and  established.  The 


38  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

practice  of  regular  holidays,  social  gatherings,  and 
common  celebrations  began — the  record  and  division 
of  past  ages,  the  exact  times  of  the  seasons,  of  the 
year,  the  months  and  its  festivals  ;  the  great  yet  little- 
prized  institution  of  the  week.  Nor  were  the  gains  to 
thought  less.  In  the  peaceful  rolling  on  of  those 
primeval  ages,  observations  had  been  stored  up  by 
an  unbroken  succession  of  priests,  without  which 
science  never  would  have  existed.  It  was  no  small 
feat  in  science  first  to  have  determined  the  exact  length 
of  the  year.  It  needed  observations  stretching  over 
a  cycle  of  1 500  years.  But  the  Egyptian  priests  had 
enumerated  the  stars,  and  could  calculate  for  centuries 
in  advance  the  times  of  their  appearance.  They 
possessed  the  simpler  processes  of  arithmetic  and 
geometry ;  they  knew  something  of  chemistry,  and 
much  of  botany,  and  even  a  little  of  surgery.  There 
was  one  invention  yet  more  astonishing  ;  the  Egyptians 
invented,  the  Phoenicians  popularised,  the  art  of  writing, 
and  transmitted  the  alphabet — our  alphabet — to  the 
Greeks.  A  truly  amazing  intellectual  effort  was  re- 
quired for  the  formation  of  the  alphabet ;  not  to  shape 
the  forms,  but  first  to  conceive  that  the  complex  sounds 
we  utter  could  be  classified,  and  reduced  down  to  those 
simple  elements  we  call  the  letters.  We  can  imagine 
hardly  any  effort  of  abstract  thought  more  difficult  than 
this,  and  certainly  none  more  essential  to  the  progress 
of  the  human  mind. 

They  had  indeed  great  minds  who  did  all  this ;  for 
they  did  not  so  much  promote  civilisation  as  create  it. 
Never  perhaps  before  or  since  has  any  order  of  men 
received  this  universal  culture  ;  never  perhaps  has  any 
order  shown  this  many-sided  activity  and  strength. 
Never  before  or  since  has  such  power  been  concentrated 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  39 

in  the  same  hands — the  entire  moral  and  material 
control  over  society.  They  had  great  minds,  great 
souls  also,  who  could  conceive  and  carry  through  such 
a  task — greater  perhaps  in  this  that  they  did  not  care 
to  celebrate  themselves  for  posterity,  but  passed  away 
when  their  work  was  done,  contented  to  have  seen  it 
done,  as  Moses  did  when  he  went  up  alone  to  die  in 
secret,  that  no  man  might  know  or  worship  at  his  tomb. 
The  debt  we  owe  these  men  and  these  times  is  great. 
It  is  said  that  man  learns  more  in  the  first  year  of  his 
childhood  than  in  any  year  subsequently  of  his  life. 
And  in  this  long  childhood  of  the  world,  how  many 
things  were  learnt !  Is  it  clear  that  they  could  have 
been  learnt  in  any  other  way  ?  Caste,  in  its  decline,  is 
the  most  degrading  of  human  institutions.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  without  it  the  arts  of  life  could  have  been  taught 
and  preserved  in  those  unsettled  ages  of  war  and 
migration.  We  rebel  justly  against  all  priestly  tyranny 
over  daily  life  and  customs.  It  is  probable  that  without 
these  sanctions  of  religion  and  law,  the  rules  of  morality, 
of  decency,  and  health  could  never  have  been  imposed 
upon  the  lawless  instincts  of  mankind.  We  turn  with 
repugnance  from  the  monotony  of  those  unvarying 
ages,  and  of  that  almost  stagnant  civilisation  ;  but  are 
we  sure  that  without  it,  it  would  have  been  possible  to 
collect  the  observations  of  distant  ages,  and  the  records 
of  dynasties  and  eras  on  which  all  science  and  all 
history  rest  ?  would  it  have  been  possible  to  provide  a 
secure  and  tranquil  field  in  which  the  slow  growth  of 
language,  art,  and  thought  could  have  worked  out, 
generation  after  generation,  ,  their  earliest  and  most 
difficult  result  ? 

No  form  of  civilisation  has  ever  endured  so  long  ;  its 
consequences  are  stamped  deeply  still  upon  our  daily 


40  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

life ;    yet  the  time  came  when  even    these   venerable 
systems  must  die. 

Their  work  was  done,  and  it  was  time  for  them  to 
pass  away.  Century  after  century  had  gone  by, 
teaching  the  same  lessons,  but  adding  nothing  new. 
Human  life  began  to  be  stifled  in  these  primeval  forms. 
The  whole  empire  of  the  priests  grew  evil  and  corrupt. 
We  know  them  chiefly  in  their  decline,  when  kings 
and  conquerors  had  usurped  and  perverted  the  patient 
energies  of  these  long-tutored  peoples.  These  great 
societies  passed  from  industrial  and  social  communities 
into  stupendous  tyrannies,  made  up  of  cruelty  and 
pride.  It  was  the  result  of  the  great  and  fatal  error 
which  lay  beneath  the  whole  priestly  system.  They 
had  misconceived  their  strength  and  their  knowledge. 
They  had  undertaken  to  organise  society  whilst  their 
own  knowledge  was  feeble  and  imperfect.  They  had 
tried  to  establish  the  rule  of  mind,  of  all  rules  the  most 
certainly  destined  to  fail ;  and  they  based  that  rule 
upon  error  and  misconception.  They  pretended  to 
govern  society  instead  of  confining  themselves  to  the 
only  possible  task,  to  teach  it.  They  who  had  begun 
by  securing  progress,  now  were  its  worst  obstacles. 
They  who  began  to  rule  by  the  right  of  intelligence, 
now  dreaded  and  crushed  intelligence.  They  fell  as 
every  priesthood  has  fallen  which  has  ever  based  its 
claims  upon  imperfect  knowledge,  or  pretended  to 
command  in  the  practical  affairs  of  life.  Yet  there  was 
only  one  way  in  which  the  nightmare  of  this  intellectual 
and  social  oppression  could  be  shaken  off,  and  these 
strong  systems  broken  up.  It  was  no  doubt  by  the 
all-powerful  instinct  of  conquest,  and  by  the  growth  of 
vast  military  monarchies,  that  the  change  was  accom- 
plished. Those  antique  societies  of  peace  and  industry 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  4! 

degenerated  at  last  into  conquering  empires  ;  and,  during 
the  thousand  years  which  precede  the  Persian  empire, 
Asia  was  swept  from  side  to  side  by  the  armies  of 
Assyrian,  Median,  Babylonian,  and  Egyptian  con- 
querors. Empire  after  empire  rose  and  fell  with  small 
result,  save  that  they  broke  the  death-like  sleep  of  ages, 
and  brought  distant  people  from  the  ends  of  the  earth 
into  contact  with  each  other. 

The  researches  and  discoveries  of  our  own  generation 
have  thrown  much  light  on  these  Asiatic  kingdoms,  and 
many  names  and  events  have  been  sufficiently  identffied. 
But  no  regular  and  authentic  history  of  the  tracts  en- 
closed between  the  Black  Sea,  the  Caspian,  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  the  Persian  Gulf  has  yet  become  possible  ; 
nor  has  our  general  conception  of  the  civilisation  of 
these  Asiatic  monarchies  been  modified  in  essential 
features.  From  time  to  time  we  find  traces  of  efforts 
made  by  independent  peoples,  Arabs,  Syrians,  Phoeni- 
cians, and  Jews,  to  free  themselves  from  the  pressure  of 
the  regime  of  caste  and  of  the  military  empires.  Of 
these  efforts  the  Jewish  nationality  is,  from  the  moral 
and  spiritual  point  of  view,  far  the  most  important. 
From  the  practical  and  material  point  of  view,  the  most 
important  is  undoubtedly  the  Phoenician.  These  two 
most  interesting  peoples  may  be  traced  for  eight  or  ten 
centuries  before  they  were  both  absorbed  in  the  Persian 
empire,  making  heroic  and  persevering  efforts  to  found 
a  new  type  of  society,  or  to  develop  the  arts  and 
resources  of  civilised  life.  The  Jewish  nation,  though  its 
subsequent  influence  on  the  conscience  and  imagination 
of  mankind  has  made  it  of  such  transcendant  interest  to 
us  in  a  later  age,  was  too  small,  too  feebly  seated,  and 
with  too  little  of  practical  genius,  to  produce  any  de- 
cisive effect  on  the  general  course  of  civil  organisation. 


42  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

That  very  remarkable  people,  the  Phoenicians,  did 
more  to  that  end.  Their  wonderful  enterprise  and  in- 
domitable nature,  their  seats  on  the  shores  of  the  Medi- 
terranean and  the  possession  of  maritime  strongholds, 
with  their  unique  aptitude  for  the  sea  in  the  early  ages, 
enabled  them  to  play  a  most  important  part  in  the 
evolution  of  human  civilisation.  They  did  what  Venice 
did  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  Holland  in  subsequent 
times.  They  carried  the  arts,  inventions,  and  products 
of  the  various  continents  and  zones  of  climate  over  the 
whole  known  world  from  Britain  to  Ceylon.  But  they 
were  too  much  dispersed,  too  mobile,  and  too  defective 
in  military  and  political  genius  to  confront  a  great 
empire,  and  they  successively  fell  before  the  Assyrian, 
Babylonish,  and  Egyptian  conquerors.  Their  arts,  their 
trade,  their  naval  supremacy,  passed  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Western  seaboards,  islands,  and  more  sheltered 
bays. 

The  world  seemed  in  danger  of  perishing  by  exhaus- 
tion. It  needed  a  new  spirit  to  revive  it.  But  now 
another  race  appears  upon  the  scene ;  a  branch  of  that 
great  Aryan  people,  who  from  the  high  lands  of  central 
Asia  have  swept  over  Assyria,  India,  and  Europe,  the 
people  who  as  Greeks,  Romans,  Gauls,  or  Teutons  have 
been  the  foremost  of  mankind,  of  whom  we  ourselves 
are  but  a  younger  branch.  Now,  too,  the  darkness 
which  covered  those  earlier  ages  of  the  world  rolls  off: 
accurate  history  begins,  and  the  drama  proceeds  in  the 
broad  light  of  certainty. 

It  is  about  550  B.C.  that  the  first  great  name  in  general 
history  appears.  Cyrus  founds  the  Persian  empire.  For 
ages,  along  the  mountain  slopes  between  the  Hindoo 
Koosh  and  the  Caspian  Sea,  the  Persian  race  had 
remained  a  simple  horde  of  wandering  herdsmen,  apart 


43 

from  the  vast  empires  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh  in  the 
plains  below.  There  they  grew  up  with  nobler  and 
freer  thoughts,  not  crushed  by  the  weight  of  a  powerful 
monarchy,  not  degraded  by  decaying  superstitions,  nor 
enervated  by  material  riches.  They  honoured  truth, 
freedom,  and  energy.  They  had  faith  in  themselves 
and  their  race.  They  valued  morality  more  than  cere- 
monies. They  believed  in  a  Supreme  Power  of  the 
universe.  Just  as  the  northern  nations  afterwards 
poured  over  the  Roman  empire,  so  these  stronger  tribes 
were  preparing  to  descend  upon  the  decaying  remains 
of  the  Asiatic  empires.  They  needed  only  a  captain, 
and  they  found  one  worthy  of  the  task  in  the  great 
King  Cyrus. 

Marshalling  his  mountain  warriors  into  a  solid  army, 
Cyrus  swept  down  upon  the  plains,  and  one  by  one  the 
empires  fell  before  him,  until  from  the  Mediterranean 
to  the  Indus,  from  Tartary  to  the  Arabian  Gulf,  all 
Asia  submitted  to  his  sway.  His  successors  continued 
his  work,  pushing  across  Arabia,  Egypt,  Africa,  and 
Northern  Asia  itself.  There  over  that  enormous  tract 
they  built  up  the  Persian  monarchy,  which  swallowed 
up  and  fused  into  one  so  many  ancient  empires.  The 
conquerors  were  soon  absorbed,  like  the  Northmen,  into 
the  theocratic  faith  and  life  of  the  conquered ;  and 
throughout  half  of  the  then  inhabited  globe  one  rule, 
one  religion,  one  system  of  life  alone  existed.  But  the 
Persian  kings  could  not  rest  whilst  a  corner  remained 
unconquered.  On  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean 
they  had  come  upon  a  people  who  had  defied  them 
with  strange  audacity.  Against  them  the  whole  weight 
of  the  Asian  empire  was  put  forth.  For  ten  years  fleets 
and  armies  were  preparing.  There  came  archers  from 
the  wastes  of  Tartary  and  the  deserts  of  Africa ; 


44  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

charioteers  from  Nineveh  and  Babylon  ;  horsemen, 
clubmen,  and  spearmen ;  the  mailclad  footmen  of 
Persia ;  the  fleets  of  the  Phoenicians  ;  all  the  races  of 
the  East  gathered  in  one  vast  host,  and,  as  legend  said, 
5,000,000  men  and  2000  ships  poured  over  the  Eastern 
seas  upon  the  devoted  people. 

And  who  were  they  who  seemed  thus  doomed  ? 
Along  the  promontories  and  islands  of  the  eastern 
Mediterranean  there  dwelt  the  scattered  race  whom  \ve 
call  Greeks,  who  had  gradually  worked  out  a  form  of 
life  totally  differing  from  the  old,  who  had  wonderfully 
expanded  the  old  arts  of  life  and  modes  of  thought. 
With  them  the  destinies  of  the  world  then  rested  for  all 
its  future  progress.  With  them  all  was  life,  change, 
and  activity.  Broken  into  sections  by  infinite  bays, 
mountains,  and  rivers,  scattered  over  a  long  line  of 
coasts  and  islands,  the  Greek  race,  with  natures  as 
varied  as  their  own  beautiful  land,  as  restless  as  their 
own  seas,  had  never  been  moulded  into  one  great  solid 
empire,  and  early  threw  off  the  weight  of  a  ruling  caste 
of  priests.  No  theocracy  or  religious  system  of  society 
ever  could  establish  itself  amidst  a  race  so  full  of  life 
and  motion,  exposed  to  influences  from  without,  divided 
within.  They  had  borrowed  the  arts  of  life  from  the 
great  Eastern  peoples,  and,  in  borrowing,  had  wonder- 
fully improved  them.  The  alphabet,  shipbuilding,  com- 
merce, they  had  from  the  Phoenicians ;  architecture, 
sculpture,  painting,  from  the  Assyrian  or  Lydian  em- 
pires. Geometry,  arithmetic,  astronomy,  they  had 
borrowed  from  the  Egyptians.  The  various  fabrics, 
arts,  and  appliances  of  the  East  came  to  them  in  pro- 
fusion across  the  seas.  Their  earliest  lawgivers,  rulers, 
and  philosophers  had  all  travelled  through  the  great 
Asian  kingdom,  and  came  back  to  their  small  country 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  45 

with  a  new  sense  of  all  the  institutions  and  ideas  of 
civilised  life. 

The  Greeks  borrowed,  they  did  not  imitate.  Alone 
as  yet,  they  had  thrown  off  the  tyranny  of  custom, 
of  caste,  of  kingcraft,  and  of  priestcraft.  They  only 
had  moulded  the  ponderous  column  and  the  uncouth 
colossus  of  the  East  into  the  graceful  shaft  and  the  life- 
like figure  of  the  gods.  They  only  had  dared  to  think 
freely,  to  ask  themselves  what  or  whence  was  this  earth, 
to  meet  the  problems  of  abstract  thought,  to  probe  the 
foundations  of  right  and  wrong.  Lastly,  they  alone  had 
conceived  the  idea  of  a  people  not  the  servants  of  one 
man  or  of  a  class,  not  chained  down  in  a  rigid  order  of 
submission,  but  the  free  and  equal  citizens  of  a  republic  ; 
for  on  them  first  had  dawned  the  idea  of  a  civilised 
community  in  which  men  should  be  not  masters  and 
slaves,  but  brothers. 

On  poured  the  myriads  of  Asia,  creating  a  famine  as 
they  marched,  drying  up  the  streams,  and  covering  the 
seas  with  their  ships.  Who  does  not  know  the  tale  of 
that  immortal  effort? — how  the  Athenians  armed  old 
and  young,  burned  their  city,  and  went  on  board  their 
ships — how  for  three  days  Leonidas  and  his  three 
hundred  held  the  pass  against  the  Asian  host,  and  lay 
down,  each  warrior  at  his  post,  calmly  smiling  in  death 
— how  the  Greek  ships  lay  in  ambush  in  their  islands, 
for  the  mighty  fleet  of  Persia — how  the  unwieldy  mass 
was  broken  and  pierced  by  its  dauntless  enemy — 
how,  all  day  the  battle  raged  beneath  the  eyes  of  the 
great  king  himself,  and,  at  its  close,  the  seas  were  heav- 
ing with  the  wrecks  of  the  shattered  host.  Of  all  the 
battles  in  history,  this  one  of  Salamis  was  the  most 
precious  to  the  human  race.  No  other  tale  of  war  can 
surpass  it.  For  in  that  war  the  heroism,  the  genius,  the 


46  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

marvellous  audacity  shown  by  these  pigmy  fleets  and 
armies  of  a  small,  weak  race,  withstood  and  crushed  the 
entire  power  of  Asia,  and  preserved  from  extinction  the 
life  and  intellect  of  future  ages. 

Victory  followed  upon  victory,  and  the  whole  Greek 
race  expanded  with  this  amazing  triumph.  The  old 
world  had  been  brought  face  to  face  with  the  intellect 
which  was  to  transform  it.  The  Greek  mind,  with  the 
whole  East  open  to  it,  exhibited  inexhaustible  activity. 
A  century  sufficed  to  develop  a  thoroughly  new  phase 
of  civilisation.  They  carried  the  arts  to  a  height 
whereon  they  stand  as  the  types  for  all  time.  In  poetry 
they  exhausted  and  perfected  every  form  of  composi- 
tion. In  politics  they  built  up  a  multitude  of  com- 
munities, rich  with  a  prolific  store  of  political  and  social 
institutions.  Throughout  their  stormy  history  stand 
forth  great  names.  Now  and  then  there  rose  amongst 
them  leaders  of  real  genius.  For  a  time  they  showed 
some  splendid  instances  of  public  virtue,  of  social  life, 
patriotism,  elevation,  sagacity,  and  energy.  For  a 
moment  Athens  at  least  may  have  believed  that  she 
had  reached  the  highest  type  of  political  existence. 
But  with  all  this  activity  and  greatness  there  was  no 
true  unity.  Wonderful  as  was  their  ingenuity,  their 
versatility  and  energy,  it  was  too  often  wasted  in  barren 
struggles  and  wanton  restlessness.  For  a  century  and 
a  half  after  the  Persian  invasion,  the  petty  Greek  states 
contended  in  one  weary  round  of  contemptible  civil 
wars  and  aimless  revolutions.  One  after  another  they 
cast  their  great  men  aside,  to  think  out  by  themselves 
the  thoughts  that  were  to  live  for  all  time,  and  gave 
themselves  up  to  be  the  victims  of  degraded  adven- 
turers. For  one  moment  only  in  their  history,  if  indeed 
for  that,  they  did  become  a  nation.  At  last,  wearied 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  47 

out  by  endless  wars  and  constant  revolutions,  the  Greek 
states  by  force  and  fraud  were  fused  in  one  people  by 
the  Macedonian  kings  ;  and  by  Macedon,  instead  of  by 
true  Hellas,  the  great  work  so  long  postponed,  but 
through  their  history  never  forgotten,  was  at  length 
attempted — the  work  of  avenging  the  Persian  invasion, 
and  subduing  Asia. 

Short  and  wonderful  was  that  career  of  conquest,  due 
wholly  to  one  marvellous  mind.  Alexander,  indeed,  in 
military  and  practical  genius  seems  to  stand  above  all 
Greeks,  as  Caesar  above  all  Romans ;  they  two  the 
greatest  chiefs  of  the  ancient  world.  No  story  in  history 
is  so  romantic  as  the  tale  of  that  ten  years  of  victory 
when  Alexander,  at  the  head  of  some  thirty  thousand 
veteran  Greeks,  poured  over  Asia,  crushing  army  after 
army,  taking  city  after  city,  and  receiving  the  homage 
of  prince  after  prince,  himself  fighting  like  a  knight- 
errant  :  until,  subduing  the  Persian  empire,  and  piercing 
Asia  from  side  to  side,  and  having  reached  even  the 
great  rivers  of  India,  he  turned  back  to  Babylon  to 
organise  his  vast  empire,  to  found  new  cities,  pour  life 
into  the  decrepit  frame  of  the  East,  and  give  to  these 
entranced  nations  the  arts  and  wisdom  of  Greece.  For 
this  he  came  to  Babylon,  but  came  thither  only  to  die. 
Endless  confusion  ensued  ;  province  after  province  broke 
up  into  a  separate  kingdom,  and  the  vast  empire  of 
Alexander  became  the  prey  of  military  adventurers. 

Yet,  though  this  creation  of  his  genius,  like  so  much 
else  that  Greece  accomplished,  was,  indeed,  in  appear- 
ance a  disastrous  failure,  still  it  had  not  been  in  vain. 
The  Greek  mind  was  diffused  over  the  East  like  the 
rays  of  the  rising  sun  when  it  revives  and  awakens 
slumbering  nature.  The  Greek  language,  the  most 
wonderful  instrument  of  thought  ever  composed  by 


48  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

man,  became  common  to  the  whole  civilised  world  ;  it 
bound  together  all  educated  men  from  the  Danube  to 
the  Indus.  The  Greek  literature,  poetry,  history,  science, 
philosophy,  and  art  were  at  once  the  common  property 
of  the  empire.  The  brilliance,  the  audacity,  the  strength 
of  the  Greek  reasoning  awoke  the  dormant  powers  of 
thought.  The  idea  of  laws,  the  idea  of  states,  the  idea 
of  citizenship,  came  like  a  revelation  upon  the  degenerate 
slaves  of  the  Eastern  tyrannies.  Nor  was  the  result 
less  important  to  the  Greek  mind  itself.  Now,  at  last, 
the  world  was  open  without  obstacle.  The  philosophers 
poured  over  the  new  empire;  they  ransacked  the  re- 
cords of  primeval  times  ;  they  studied  the  hoarded  lore 
of  the  Egyptian  and  Chaldean  priests.  Old  astronomical 
observations,  old  geometric  problems,  long  concealed, 
were  thrown  open  to  them.  They  travelled  over  the 
whole  continent  of  Asia,  studying  its  wonders  of  the 
past,  collecting  its  natural  curiosities,  examining  its 
surface,  its  climates,  its  production,  its  plants,  its 
animals,  and  its  human  races,  customs,  and  ideas. 
Lastly,  they  gathered  up  and  pondered  over  the  half- 
remembered  traditions  and  the  half-comprehended  mys- 
teries of  Asian  belief:  the  conceptions  which  had  risen 
up  before  the  intense  abstraction  of  Indian  and  Baby- 
lonian mystics,  Jewish  and  Egyptian  prophets  and 
priests  ;  the  notion  of  some  great  principle  or  thought, 
or  Being,  utterly  unseen  and  unknown,  above  all  gods, 
and  without  material  form.  Thus  arose  the  earliest 
germ  of  that  spirit  which,  by  uniting  Greek  logic  with 
Chaldean  or  Jewish  imagination,  prepared  the  way  for 
the  religious  systems  of  Mussulman  and  Christian. 

Such  was  the  result  of  the  great  conquest  of  Alex- 
ander. Not  by  its  utter  failure  as  an  empire  are  we  to 
judge  it ;  not  by  the  vices  and  follies  of  its  founder,  nor 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  49 

the  profligate  orgies  of  its  dissolution,  must  we  condemn 
it.  We  must  value  it  as  the  means  whereby  the  effete 
world  of  the  East  was  renewed  by  the  life  of  European 
thought,  by  which  arose  the  first  ideas  of  nature  as  a 
whole  and  of  mankind  as  a  whole,  by  which  the  ground 
was  first  prepared  for  the  Roman  empire,  and  for 
Christian  and  Mahometan  religion. 

As  a  nation  the  Greeks  had  established  little  that 
was  lasting.  They  had  changed  much ;  they  had 
organised  hardly  anything.  As  the  great  Asian  system 
had  sacrificed  all  to  permanence,  so  the  Greek  sacrificed 
all  to  movement.  The  Greeks  had  created  no  system 
of  law,  no  political  order,  no  social  system.  If  civilisa- 
tion had  stopped  there,  it  would  have  ended  in  ceaseless 
agitation,  discord,  and  dissolution.  Their  character  was 
wanting  in  self-command  and  tenacity,  and  their  genius 
was  too  often  wasted  in  intellectual  licence.  Yet  if 
politically  they  were  unstable,  intellectually  they  were 
great.  The  lives  of  their  great  heroes  are  their  rich 
legacy  to  all  future  ages  ;  Solon,  Themistocles,  Pericles, 
Epaminondas,  and  Demosthenes  stand  forth  as  the 
types  of  bold  and  creative  leaders  of  men.  The  story  of 
their  best  days  has  scarcely  its  equal  in  history.  In 
art  they  gave  us  the  works  of  Phidias,  the  noblest 
image  of  the  human  form  ever  created  by  man.  In 
poetry,  the  models  of  all  time — Homer,  the  greatest 
and  the  earliest  of  poets  ;  ^Eschylus,  the  greatest  master 
of  the  tragic  art ;  Plato,  the  most  eloquent  of  moral 
teachers ;  Pindar,  the  first  of  all  in  lyric  art.  In 
philosophy  and  in  science  the  Greek  mind  laid  the 
foundations  of  all  knowledge,  beyond  which,  until  the 
last  three  centuries,  very  partial  advance  had  been  made. 
Building  on  the  ground  prepared  by  the  Egyptians, 
they  did  much  to  perfect  arithmetic,  raised  geometry 

D 


50  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

to  a  science  by  itself,  and  invented  that  system  of 
astronomy  which  served  the  world  for  fifteen  centuries. 
In  knowledge  of  animal  life  and  the  art  of  healing  they 
constructed  a  body  of  accurate  observations  and  sound 
analysis  ;  in  physics,  or  the  knowledge  of  the  material 
earth,  they  advanced  to  the  point  at  which  little  was 
added  till  the  time  of  Bacon  himself. 

In  abstract  thought  their  results  were  still  more 
surprising.  All  the  ideas  that  lie  at  the  root  of  our 
modern  abstract  philosophy  may  be  found  in  germ  in 
Greece.  The  schools  of  modern  metaphysics  are  the 
development  of  conceptions  vaguely  grasped  by  them. 
They  analysed  with  perfect  precision  and  wonderful 
minuteness  the  processes  employed  in  language  and  in 
reasoning ;  they  systematised  grammar  and  logic,  rhetoric 
and  music  ;  they  correctly  analysed  the  human  mind, 
the  character,  the  emotions,  and  founded  the  science  of 
morality  and  the  art  of  education ;  they  correctly 
analysed  the  elements  of  society  and  political  life,  and 
initiated  the  science  of  politics,  or  the  theory  of  social 
union.  Lastly,  they  criticised  and  laid  bare  all  the 
existing  beliefs  of  mankind  ;  pierced  the  imposing  false- 
hood of  the  old  religions ;  meditated  on  all  the  various 
answers  ever  given  to  the  problem  of  human  destiny, 
of  the  universe  and  its  origin,  and  slowly  worked  out 
the  conception  of  unity  through  the  whole  visible  and 
invisible  universe,  which,  in  some  shape  or  other,  has 
been  the  belief  of  man  for  twenty  centuries.  Such  were 
their  gifts  to  the  world.  It  was  an  intellect  active, 
subtle,  and  real,  marked  by  the  true  scientific  character 
of  freedom,  precision,  and  consistency.  And,  as  the 
Greek  intellect  overtopped  the  intellect  of  all  races  of 
men,  and  combined  in  itself  the  gifts  of  all  others,  so 
were  the  great  intellects  of  Greece  all  overtopped  and 


THE  CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  51 

concentrated  in  one  great  mind — the  greatest,  doubtless, 
of  all  human  minds — the  matchless  Aristotle  ;  as  the 
poet  says,  '  The  master  of  those  who  know,'  who,  in  all 
branches  of  human  knowledge,  built  the  foundations  of 
abiding  truth. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  to  reflect  what  point  we 
have  reached  in  the  history  of  civilisation.  Asia  had 
founded  the  first  arts  and  usages  of  material  life,  begun 
the  earliest  social  institutions,  and  taught  us  the  rudi- 
ments of  science  and  of  thought.  Greece  had  expanded 
all  these  in  infinite  variety  and  subtlety,  had  instituted 
the  free  state,  and  given  life  to  poetry  and  art,  had 
formed  fixed  habits  of  accurate  reasoning  and  of  system- 
atic observation.  Materially  and  intellectually  civilisa- 
tion existed.  Yet  in  Greece  we  feel  that,  socially, 
everything  is  abortive.  The  Greeks  had  not  grown 
into  an  united  nation.  They  split  into  a  multitude 
of  jealous  republics.  These  republics  split  into  hostile 
and  restless  factions.  And  when  the  genius  of  the 
Macedonian  kings  had  at  last  founded  an  empire,  it 
lasted  but  twenty  years,  and  gave  place  to  even  more 
colossal  confusion.  All  that  we  associate  with  true 
national  existence  was  yet  to  come,  but  the  noble  race 
who  were  to  found  it  had  long  been  advancing  towards 
their  high  destiny.  Alexander,  perhaps,  had  scarcely 
heard  of  that  distant,  half-educated  people,  who  for 
four  centuries  had  been  slowly  building  up  the  power 
which  was  to  absorb  and  supersede  his  empire. 

Far  beyond  the  limits  of  his  degenerate  subjects, 
worthier  successors  of  his  genius  were  at  hand :  the 
Romans  were  coming  upon  the  world.  The  Greeks 
founded  the  city,  the  Romans  the  nation.  The  Greeks 
were  the  authors  of  philosophy,  the  Romans  of  govern- 
ment, justice,  and  peace.  The  Greek  ideal  was  thought, 


52  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

the  Roman  ideal  was  law.  The  Greeks  taught  us  the 
noble  lesson  of  individual  freedom,  the  Romans  the 
still  nobler  lesson,  the  sense  of  social  duty.  It  is  just, 
therefore,  that  to  the  Romans,  as  to  the  people  who 
alone  throughout  all  ages  gave  unity,  peace,  and  order 
to  the  civilised  world,  who  gave  us  the  elements  of  our 
modern  political  life,  and  have  left  us  the  richest  record 
of  public  duty,  heroism,  and  self-sacrifice — it  is  just  that 
to  them  we  assign  the  place  of  the  noblest  nation  in 
ancient  history.  That  which  marks  the  Roman  with 
his  true  greatness  was  his  devotion  to  the  social  body, 
his  sense  of  self-surrender  to  country  :  a  duty  to  which 
the  claims  of  family  and  person  were  implicitly  to  yield  ; 
which  neither  death,  nor  agony,  nor  disgrace  could 
subdue ;  which  was  the  only  reward,  pleasure,  or  re- 
ligion which  a  true  citizen  could  need.  This  was  the 
greatness,  not  of  a  few  leading  characters,  but  of  an 
entire  people  during  many  generations.  The  Roman 
state  did  not  give  merely  examples  of  heroes — it  was 
formed  of  heroes  ;  nor  were  they  less  marked  by  their 
sense  of  obedience,  submission  to  rightful  authority 
where  the  interest  of  the  state  required  it,  submission  to 
order  and  law. 

Nor  were  the  Romans  without  a  deep  sense  of  justice. 
They  did  not  war  to  crush  the  conquered  ;  once  sub- 
dued, they  dealt  with  them  as  their  fellows,  they  made 
equal  laws  and  a  common  rule  for  them  ;  they  bound 
them  all  into  the  same  service  of  their  common  country. 
Above  all  other  nations  in  the  world  they  believed  in 
their  mission  and  destiny.  From  age  to  age  they 
paused  not  in  one  great  object  No  prize  could  beguile 
them,  no  delusion  distract  them.  Each  Roman  felt  the 
divinity  of  the  Eternal  City,  destined  always  to  march 
onwards  in  triumph :  in  its  service  every  faculty  of  his 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  53 

mind  was  given  ;  life,  wealth,  and  rest  were  as  nothing 
to  this  cause.  In  this  faith  they  could  plan  out  for  the 
distant  future,  build  up  so  as  to  prepare  for  vast  ex- 
tension, calculate  far  distant  schemes,  and  lay  stone  by 
stone  the  walls  of  an  enduring  structure.  Hence 
throughout  the  great  age  each  Roman  was  a  statesman, 
for  he  needed  to  provide  for  the  future  ages  of  his 
country  ;  each  Roman  was  a  citizen  of  the  world,  for  all 
nations  were  destined  to  be  his  fellow-citizens  ;  each 
Roman  could  command,  for  he  had  learnt  to  obey,  and 
to  know  that  he  who  commands  and  he  who  obeys  are 
but  the  servants  of  one  higher  power — their  common 
fatherland. 

Long  and  stern  were  the  efforts  by  which  this  power 
was  built  up.  Deep  as  is  the  mystery  which  covers  the 
origin  of  Rome,  we  can  still  trace  dimly  how,  about  the 
centre  of  the  Italian  peninsula,  along  the  banks  of  the 
Tiber,  fragments  of  two  tribes  were  fused  by  some 
heroic  chieftain  into  one ;  the  first  more  intellectual, 
supple,  and  ingenious,  the  second  more  stubborn, 
courageous,  and  faithful.  We  see  more  clearly  how  this 
compound  people  rose  through  the  strength  of  these 
qualities  of  mind  and  character  to  be  the  foremost  of 
the  neighbouring  tribes  ;  how  they  long  maintained 
that  religious  order  of  society  which  the  Greeks  so  early 
shook  off;  how  it  moulded  all  the  institutions  of  their 
life,  filled  them  with  reverence  for  the  duties  of  family, 
for  their  parents,  their  wives,  for  the  memory  and  the 
spirit  of  their  dead  ancestors,  taught  them  submission 
to  judges  and  chiefs,  devotion  to  their  mother-city,  love 
for  her  commands,  her  laws,  and  her  traditions,  trained 
them  to  live  and  die  for  her — indeed,  compassed  their 
whole  existence  with  a  sense  of  duty  towards  their 
fellows  and  each  other ;  how  this  sense  of  social  duty 


54  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

grew  into  the  very  fibres  of  their  iron  natures,  kept  the 
state  through  all  dangers  rooted  in  the  imperishable 
trust  and  instinct  of  a  massive  people ;  then  how  this 
well-knit  race  advanced  step  by  step  upon  their  neigh- 
bouring tribes,  slowly  united  them  in  one,  gave  them 
their  own  laws,  made  them  their  own  citizens  ;  step  by 
step  advanced  upon  the  only  civilised  nation  of  the  penin- 
sula, the  theocratic  society  of  Etruria,  took  from  them 
the  arts  of  war  and  peace  ;  how  the  hordes  of  Northern 
barbarians  poured  over  the  peninsula  like  a  flood, 
sweeping  all  the  nations  below  its  waters,  and  when 
they  emerged,  Rome  only  was  left  strong  and  confident ; 
how,  after  four  centuries  of  constant  struggle,  held  up 
always  by  the  sense  of  future  greatness,  the  Romans 
had  at  length  absorbed  one  by  one  the  leading  nations 
of  Italy,  and  by  one  supreme  effort,  after  thirty  years  of 
war,  had  crushed  their  noblest  and  strongest  rivals,  their 
equals  in  all  but  genius  and  fortune,  and  stood  at  last 
the  masters  of  Italy,  from  shore  to  shore. 

Soon  came  the  great  crisis  of  their  history,  the  long 
wars  of  Rome  and  Carthage.  On  one  side  was  the 
genius  of  war,  empire,  law,  and  art,  on  the  other  the 
genius  of  commerce,  industry,  and  wealth.  The  sub- 
jects of  Carthage  were  scattered  over  the  Mediterranean, 
the  power  of  Rome  was  compact  Carthage  fought 
with  regular  mercenaries,  Rome  with  her  disciplined 
citizens.  Carthage  had  consummate  generals,  but 
Rome  had  matchless  soldiers.  Long  the  scale  trembled. 
Not  once  nor  twice  was  Rome  stricken  down  to  the 
dust.  Punic  fleets  swept  the  seas.  African  horsemen 
scoured  the  plains.  Barbarian  hordes  were  gathered  up 
by  the  wealth  of  Carthage,  and  marshalled  by  the 
genius  of  her  great  captain.  For  her  fought  the 
greatest  military  genius  of  the  ancient  world,  perhaps  of 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  55 

all  time.  Hannibal,  himself  a  child  of  the  camp 
training  a  veteran  army  in  the  wars  of  Spain,  led 
his  victorious  troops  across  Gaul,  crossed  the  Alps, 
poured  down  upon  Italy,  struck  down  army  after  army, 
and  at  last,  by  one  crowning  victory,  scattered  the  last 
military  force  of  Rome.  Beset  by  an  invincible  army 
in  the  heart  of  Italy,  her  strongholds  stormed,  without 
generals  or  armies,  without  money  or  allies,  without 
cavalry  or  ships,  it  seemed  that  the  last  hour  of  Rome 
was  come.  Now,  if  ever,  she  needed  that  faith  in  her 
destiny,  the  solid  strength  of  her  slow  growth,  and  the 
energy  of  her  entire  people.  They  did  not  fail  her.  In 
her  worst  need  her  people  held  firm,  her  senate  never 
lost  heart,  armies  grew  out  of  the  very  remnants  and 
slaves  within  her  walls.  Inch  by  inch  the  invader  was 
driven  back,  watched  and  besieged  in  turn.  The  genius 
of  Rome  revived  in  Scipio.  He  it  was  who,  with  an 
eagle's  sight,  saw  the  weakness  of  her  enemy,  swooped, 
with  an  eagle's  flight,  upon  Carthage  herself,  and  at  last, 
before  her  walls,  overthrew  Hannibal,  and  with  him  the 
hopes  and  power  of  his  country  and  his  race. 

It  is  in  these  first  centuries  that  we  see  the  source  of 
the  greatness  of  Rome.  Then  was  founded  her  true 
strength.  What  tales  of  heroism,  dignity,  and  endur- 
ance have  they  not  left  us !  There  are  no  types  of 
public  virtue  grander  than  these.  Brutus  condemning 
his  traitor  sons  to  death  ;  Horatius  defending  the  bridge 
against  an  army  ;  Cincinnatus  taken  from  the  plough 
to  rule  the  state,  returning  from  ruling  the  state  again 
to  the  plough ;  the  Decii,  father  and  son,  solemnly 
devoting  themselves  to  death  to  propitiate  the  gods  of 
Rome  ;  Regulus  the  prisoner  going  to  his  home  only  to 
exhort  his  people  not  to  yield,  and  returning  calmly  to 
his  prison  ;  Cornelia  offering  up  her  children  to  death 


56  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

and  shame  for  the  cause  of  the  people  ;  great  generals 
content  to  live  like  simple  yeomen  ;  old  and  young  ever 
ready  to  march  to  certain  death  ;  hearts  proof  against 
eloquence,  gold,  or  pleasure ;  noble  matrons  training 
their  children  to  duty  ;  senates  ever  confident  in  their 
country ;  generals  returning  from  conquered  nations 
in  poverty  ;  the  leader  of  triumphant  armies  becoming 
the  equal  of  the  humblest  citizens. 

Carthage  once  overcome,  the  conquest  of  the  world 
followed  rapidly.  Spain  and  the  islands  of  the  Medi- 
terranean Sea  were  the  prizes  of  the  war.  Lower  Gaul, 
Greece,  and  Macedon  were  also  within  fifty  years  incor- 
porated in  Rome.  She  pushed  further.  The  whole 
empire  of  Alexander  fell  into  her  hands,  and  at  length, 
after  seven  hundred  years  of  conquest,  she  remained  the 
mistress  of  the  civilised  world.  But,  long  before  this, 
she  herself  had  become  the  prey  of  convulsions.  The 
marvellous  empire,  so  rapidly  expanded,  had  deeply 
corrupted  the  power  which  had  won  it.  Her  old  heroes 
were  no  more.  Her  virtues  failed  her,  and  her  vast 
dominions  had  long  become  the  prize  of  bloody  and 
selfish  factions.  The  ancient  republic,  whose  freemen 
had  once  met  to  consult  in  the  Forum,  broke  up  in 
the  new  position  for  which  her  system  was  utterly 
unfit. 

For  nearly  a  century  the  great  empire  had  inevitably 
tended  towards  union  in  a  single  centre.  One  dictator 
after  another  had  possessed  and  misused  the  sovereign 
power.  At  last  it  passed  to  the  worthiest,  and  the  rule 
over  the  whole  ancient  world  came  to  its  greatest  name, 
the  noble  Julius  Caesar.  In  him  were  found  more  than 
the  Roman  genius  for  government  and  law,  with  a 
gentleness  and  grace  few  Romans  ever  had  ;  an  intellect 
truly  Greek  in  its  love  of  science,  of  art,  in  reach  and 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  57 

subtlety  of  thought ;  and,  above  all  this,  in  spite  of  vices 
and  passions  which  he  shared  with  his  age,  a  breadth  of 
view  and  heart,  a  spirit  of  human  fellowship  and  social 
progress,  peculiar  to  one  who  was  the  friend  of  men  of 
different  races,  countries,  and  ideas.  Julius  was  con- 
summate general,  orator,  poet,  historian,  ruler,  lawgiver, 
reformer,  and  philosopher ;  in  the  highest  sense  the 
statesman,  magnanimous,  provident,  laborious,  large- 
hearted,  affable,  resolute,  and  brave.  With  him  the 
Roman  empire  enters  on  a  new  and  better  phase.  He 
first  saw  and  showed  how  this  vast  aggregate  of  men 
must  be  ruled  no  longer  as  the  subjects  of  one  conquer- 
ing city,  but  as  a  real  and  single  state  governed  in  the 
interest  of  all,  with  equal  rights  and  common  laws  ;  and 
Rome  be  no  longer  the  mistress,  but  the  leader  only  of 
the  nations.  In  this  spirit  he  broke  with  the  old  Roman 
temper  of  narrow  nationality  and  pride  ;  raised  to  power 
and  trust  new  men  of  all  ranks  and  of  all  nations  ; 
opened  the  old  Roman  privileges  of  citizenship  to  the 
new  subjects ;  laboured  to  complete  and  extend  the 
Roman  law ;  reorganised  the  administration  of  the 
distant  provinces  ;  and  sought  to  extinguish  the  trace 
of  party  fury  and  hatred. 

When  the  selfish  rage  of  the  old  Roman  aristocracy 
had  struck  him  down  before  his  work  was  half  complete, 
yet  his  work  did  not  perish  with  him.  The  Roman 
empire  at  last  rose  to  the  level  which  he  had  planned 
for  it.  For  some  two  centuries  it  did  succeed  in  main- 
taining an  era  of  progress,  peace,  and  civilisation — a 
government,  indeed,  at  times  frightfully  corrupt,  at 
times  convulsed  to  its  foundations,  yet  in  the  main  in 
accordance  with  the  necessities  of  the  times,  and  rising 
in  its  highest  types  to  wise,  tranquil,  and  prudent  rule, 
embracing  all,  open  to  all,  just  to  all,  and  beloved  by 


58  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

all.  Then  it  was,  during  those  two  centuries,  broken  as 
they  were  by  temporary  convulsions,  that  the  nations  of 
Europe  rose  into  civilised  life.  Then  the  Spaniard,  the 
Gaul,  the  Briton,  the  German,  the  people  that  dwelt 
along  the  whole  course  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube, 
first  learnt  the  arts  and  ideas  of  life  ;  law,  government, 
society,  education,  industry,  appeared  amongst  them  ; 
and  over  the  tracts  of  land  trodden  for  so  many  cen- 
turies by  rival  tribes  and  devastating  hordes,  security 
first  appeared,  turmoil  gave  place  to  repose,  and  there 
rose  the  notion,  not  forgotten  for  ten  centuries,  of  the 
solemn  Peace  of  Rome. 

Let  us  recount  what  it  was  that  the  Roman  had  given 
to  the  world.  In  the  first  place,  his  law — that  Roman 
law,  the  most  perfect  political  creation  of  the  human 
mind,  which  for  one  thousand  years  grew  with  one  even 
and  expanding  life — the  law  which  is  the  basis  of  all 
the  law  of  Europe,  including  even  our  own.  Then  the 
political  system  of  towns.  The  actual  municipal  con- 
stitution of  the  old  cities  of  Western  Europe,  from 
Gibraltar  to  the  Baltic,  from  the  Channel  to  Sicily,  is 
but  a  development  of  the  Roman  city,  which  lasted 
through  the  Middle  Ages,  and  began  modern  industrial 
life.  Next,  all  the  institutions  of  administration  and 
police  which  modern  Europe  has  developed  had  their 
origin  there.  To  them  in  the  Middle  Ages  men  turned 
when  the  age  of  confusion  was  ending.  To  them  again 
men  turned  when  the  Middle  Ages  themselves  were 
passing  away.  The  establishment  of  elective  assemblies, 
of  graduated  magistracies,  of  local  and  provincial  justice, 
of  public  officers  and  public  institutions,  free  museums, 
baths,  theatres,  libraries,  and  schools — all  that  we  under- 
stand by  organised  society,  in  a  word,  may  be  traced 
back  to  the  Empire.  Throughout  all  Western  Europe, 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  59 

from  that  germ,  civilisation  arose  and  raised  its  head 
after  the  invasion  of  the  Northern  tribes.  From  the 
same  source,  too,  arose  the  force,  at  once  monarchic  and 
municipal,  which  overthrew  the  feudal  system.  It  was 
the  remnant  of  the  old  Roman  ideas  of  provincial 
organisation  that  first  formed  the  counties  and  duchies 
which  afterwards  coalesced  into  a  state.  It  was  the 
memory  of  the  Roman  township  which  gave  birth  to 
the  first  free  towns  of  Europe.  It  was  the  tradition  of 
a  Roman  emperor  which,  by  long  intermediate  steps, 
transformed  the  Teutonic  chieftain  into  the  modern 
king  or  emperor.  London,  York,  Lincoln,  Winchester, 
Gloucester,  and  Chester  were  Roman  cities,  and  formed 
then,  as  they  did  for  the  earlier  periods  of  our  history, 
the  pivots  of  our  national  administration.  Paris,  Rouen, 
Lyons,  Marseilles,  Bordeaux,  in  France ;  Constance, 
Basle,  Coblentz,  Cologne,  upon  the  Rhine ;  Cadiz,  Bar- 
celona, Seville,  Toledo,  Lisbon,  in  the  Iberian — Genoa, 
Milan,  Verona,  Rome,  and  Naples  in  the  Italian  penin- 
sula, were  in  Roman,  as  in  modern  times,  the  great 
national  centres  of  their  respective  countries.  But,  above 
all  else,  Rome  founded  a  permanent  system  of  free 
obedience  to  the  laws  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  tem- 
perate administration  of  them  on  the  other ;  the 
constant  sense  of  each  citizen  having  his  place  in  a 
complex  whole. 

The  Roman's  strength  was  in  action,  not  in  thought ; 
but  in  thought  he  gave  us  something  besides  his  special 
creation  of  universal  law.  It  was  his  to  discover  the 
meaning  of  history.  Egypt  had  carved  on  eternal  rocks 
the  pompous  chronicles  of  kings.  The  Greeks  wrote 
profound  and  brilliant  memoirs.  It  was  reserved  to  a 
Roman  to  conceive  and  execute  the  history  of  his  people 
stretching  over  seven  hundred  years,  and  to  give  the 


60  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

first  proof  of  the  continuity  and  unity  of  national  life. 
In  art  the  Roman  did  little  but  develop  the  Greek 
types  of  architecture  into  stupendous  and  complex 
forms,  fit  for  new  uses,  and  worthy  of  his  people's 
grandeur.  But  the  great  triumphs  of  his  skill  were  in 
engineering.  He  invented  the  arch,  the  dome,  and  the 
viaduct.  The  bridges  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  studied 
from  Roman  remains.  The  great  domes  of  Italian 
cathedrals,  of  which  that  of  our  own  St.  Paul's  is  an 
imitation,  were  formed  directly  on  the  model  of  a  temple 
at  Rome.  But  in  thought,  the  great  gift  of  Rome  was 
in  her  language,  which  has  served  as  an  admirable  in- 
strument of  religious,  moral,  and  political  reflection, 
and,  with  many  dialectic  variations,  forms  the  base  of 
the  languages  of  three  of  the  great  nations  of  Europe. 
Then  it  was,  under  the  Roman  empire,  that  the  stores 
of  Greek  thought  became  common  to  the  world.  As 
the  empire  of  Alexander  had  shed  them  over  the  East, 
the  empire  of  Rome  gave  them  to  the  West.  Greek 
language,  literature,  poetry,  science,  and  art  became  the 
common  education  of  the  civilised  world  ;  and  from  the 
Grampians  to  the  Euphrates,  from  the  Atlas  to  the  Rhine 
and  the  Caucasus,  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  the 
history  of  man,  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa  formed  one 
political  whole.  The  union  of  the  oriental  half,  indeed, 
was  mainly  external  and  material,  but  throughout  the 
western  half  a  common  order  of  ideas  prevailed.  Their 
religion  was  the  belief  in  many  gods — a  system  in  which 
each  of  the  powers  of  nature,  each  virtue,  each  art,  was 
thought  to  be  the  manifestation  of  some  separate  god. 
It  was  a  system  which  stimulated  activity,  self-reliance, 
toleration,  sociability,  and  art,  but  which  left  the  external 
world  a  vague  and  unmeaning  mystery,  and  the  heart 
of  man  a  prey  to  violent  and  conflicting  passions.  It 


THE  CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  6l 

possessed  not  that  idea  of  unity  which  alone  can  sustain 
philosophy  and  science,  and  alone  can  establish  in  the 
breast  a  fixed  and  elevated  moral  conscience. 

The  Roman  system  had  its  strong  points,  but  it  had 
many  weak.  They  were  in  the  main  three.  It  was  a 
system  founded  upon  war,  upon  slavery,  upon  fictions 
and  dreams.  As  to  war,  it  is  most  true  that  war  was 
not  then,  as  in  modern  times,  the  monstrous  negation  of 
civilisation.  It  seems  that  by  war  alone  could  nations 
then  be  pressed  into  that  union  which  was  essential  to 
all  future  progress.  Whilst  war  was  common  to  all  the 
nations  of  antiquity,  with  the  Romans  alone  it  became 
the  instrument  of  progress.  The  Romans  warred  only 
to  found  peace.  They  did  not  so  much  conquer  as  in- 
corporate the  nations.  Not  more  by  the  strength  of  the 
Roman  than  by  the  instinctive  submission  in  the  con- 
quered to  his  manifest  superiority,  was  the  great  empire 
built  up.  Victors  and  vanquished  share  in  the  honour 
of  the  common  result — law,  order,  peace,  and  govern- 
ment. When  the  Romans  conquered,  it  was  once  for 
all.  That  which  once  became  a  province  of  the  Roman 
empire  rested  thenceforth  in  profound  tranquillity.  No 
standing  armies,  no  brutal  soldiery,  overawed  the  interior 
or  the  towns.  Whilst  all  within  the  circle  of  the  empire 
rested  in  peace,  along  its  frontiers  stood  the  disciplined 
veterans  of  Rome  watching  the  roving  hordes  of  bar- 
barians, protecting  the  pale  of  civilisation. 

Still,  however  useful  in  its  place,  it  was  a  system  of 
war ;  a  system  necessarily  fatal  in  the  long-run  to  all 
progress,  to  all  industry,  to  all  the  domestic  virtues,  to 
all  the  gentler  feelings.  In  a  state  in  which  all  great 
ideas  and  traditions  originated  in  conquest,  the  dignity 
of  labour,  the  arts  of  industry,  were  never  recognised  or 
respected  ;  the  era  of  conquest  over,  the  existence  of  the 


62  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

great  Roman  became  in  too  many  cases  purposeless, 
idle,  and  vicious.  Charity,  compassion,  humanity,  were 
unknown  virtues.  The  home  was  sacrificed.  The  con- 
dition of  woman  in  the  wreck  of  the  family  relations 
sank  to  the  lowest  ebb.  In  a  word,  the  stern  virtues  of 
the  old  Roman  private  life  seemed  ending  in  inhuman 
ferocity  and  monstrous  debauchery. 

Secondly,  the  Roman,  like  every  ancient  system,  was 
a  system  of  slavery.  It  existed  only  for  the  few.  True 
industry  was  impossible.  The  whole  industrial  class 
were  degraded.  The  owners  of  wealth  and  its  pro- 
ducers were  alike  demoralised.  In  the  great  towns  were 
gathered  a  miserable  crowd  of  poor  freemen,  with  all 
the  vices  of  the  '  mean  whites.'  Throughout  Italy 
the  land  was  cultivated,  not  by  a  peasantry,  not  by 
scattered  labourers,  but  by  gangs  of  slaves,  guarded  in 
workhouses  and  watched  by  overseers.  Hence  usually 
the  free  population  and  all  civilisation  was  gathered 
in  the  towns.  The  spaces  between  and  around  them 
were  wildernesses,  with  pasturage  and  slaves  in  place  of 
agriculture  and  men. 

Thirdly,  it  was  a  system  based  on  a  belief  in  a  multi- 
tude of  gods,  a  system  without  truth,  or  coherence,  or 
power.  There  was  no  single  belief  to  unite  all  classes 
in  one  faith.  Nothing  ennobling  to  trust  in,  no  standard 
of  right  and  wrong  which  could  act  on  the  moral  nature. 
There  were  no  recognised  teachers.  The  moral  and  the 
material  were  hopelessly  confused.  The  politicians  had 
no  system  of  morality,  religion,  or  belief,  and  were  void 
of  moral  authority,  though  they  claimed  to  have  a  moral 
right.  The  philosophers  and  the  moralists  were  hardly 
members  of  the  state;  each  taught  only -to  a  circle  of 
admirers,  and  exercised  no  wide  social  influence.  The 
religion  of  the  people  had  long  ceased  to  be  believed. 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  63 

It  had  long  been  without  any  moral  purpose  ;  it  became 
a  vague  mass  of  meaningless  traditions. 

With  these  threefold  sources  of  corruption — war, 
slavery,  false  belief — the  Roman  empire,  so  magnificent 
without,  was  a  rotten  fabric  within.  Politically  vigorous, 
morally  it  was  diseased.  Never  perhaps  has  the  world 
witnessed  cases  of  such  stupendous  moral  corruption,  as 
when  immense  power,  boundless  riches,  and  native 
energy  were  left  as  they  were  then  without  object,  con- 
trol, or  shame.  Then,  from  time  to  time,  there  broke 
forth  a  very  orgy  of  wanton  strength.  But  its  hour  was 
come.  The  best  spirits  were  all  filled  with  a  sense  of 
the  hollowness  and  corruption  around  them.  Statesmen, 
poets,  and  philosophers  in  all  these  last  eras  were  pour- 
ing forth  their  complaints  and  fears,  or  feebly  attempting 
remedies.  The  new  element  had  long  been  making  its 
way  unseen,  had  long  been  preparing  the  ground,  and 
throughout  the  civilised  world  there  was  rising  up  a 
groan  of  weariness  and  despair. 

For  three  centuries  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  one 
God  alone,  in  whom  were  concentrated  all  power  and 
goodness,  who  cared  for  the  moral  guidance  of  mankind, 
a  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  its  existence 
in  another  state,  had  been  growing  up  in  the  minds  of 
the  best  Greek  thinkers.  The  noble  morality  of  their 
philosophers  had  taken  strong  hold  of  the  higher  con- 
sciences of  Rome,  and  had  diffused  amongst  the  better 
spirits  throughout  the  empire  new  and  purer  types. 
Next  the  great  empire  itself,  forcing  all  nations  in  one 
state,  had  long  inspired  in  its  worthiest  members  a 
sense  of  the  great  brotherhood  of  mankind,  had  slowly 
mitigated  the  worst  evils  of  slavery,  and  paved  the  way 
for  a  religious  society.  Thirdly,  another  and  a  greater 
cause  was  at  work.  Through  Greek  teachers  the  world 


64  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

had  long  been  growing  familiar  with  the  religious  ideas 
of  Asia,  its  conceptions  of  a  superhuman  world,  of  a 
world  of  spirit,  angel,  demon,  future  state,  and  overruling 
Creator,  with  its  mystical  imagery,  its  spiritual  poetry, 
its  intense  zeal  and  fervent  emotion.  And  now,  partly 
from  the  contact  with  Greek  thought  and  Roman  civil- 
isation, a  great  change  was  taking  place  in  the  very 
heart  of  that  small  Jewish  race,  of  all  the  races  of  Asia 
known  to  us  the  most  intense,  imaginative,  and  pure : 
possessing  a  high  sense  of  personal  morality,  the  keenest 
yearnings  of  the  heart,  and  the  deepest  capacity  for 
spiritual  fervour.  In  their  midst  arose  a  fellowship  of 
devoted  brethren,  gathered  around  one  noble  and  touch- 
ing character,  which  adoration  has  veiled  in  mystery  till 
he  passes  from  the  pale  of  definite  history.  On  them 
had  dawned  the  vision  of  a  new  era  of  their  national 
faith,  which  should  expand  the  devotion  of  David,  the 
spiritual  zeal  of  Isaiah,  and  the  moral  power  of  Samuel 
into  a  gentler,  wider,  and  more  loving  spirit. 

How  this  new  idea  grew  to  the  height  of  a  new  religion, 
and  was  shed  over  the  whole  earth  by  the  strength  of 
its  intensity  and  its  purity,  is  to  us  a  familiar  tale.  We 
know  how  the  first  fellowship  of  the  brethren  met ;  how 
they  went  forth  with  words  of  mercy,  love,  justice,  and 
hope ;  we  know  their  self-denial,  humility,  and  zeal ;  their 
heroic  lives  andawful  deaths;  their  lovingnatures  and  their 
noble  purposes ;  how  they  gathered  around  them  wherever 
they  came  the  purest  and  greatest ;  how  across  moun- 
tains, seas,  and  continents  the  communion  of  saints  joined 
in  affectionate  trust ;  how  from  the  deepest  corruption  of 
the  heart  arose  a  yearning  for  a  truer  life  ;  how  the  new 
faith,  ennobling  the  instincts  of  human  nature,  raised  up 
the  slave,  the  poor,  and  the  humble  to  the  dignity  of 
common  manhood,  and  gave  new  meaning  to  the  true 


THE   CONNECTION    OF   HISTORY  65 

nature  of  womanhood  ;  how,  by  slow  degrees,  the  church, 
with  its  rule  of  right,  of  morality,  and  of  communion, 
arose;  how  the  first  founders  and  apostles  of  this  faith 
lived  and  died,  and  all  their  gifts  were  concentrated  in 
one,  of  all  the  characters  of  certain  history  doubtless 
the  loftiest  and  purest — the  unselfish,  the  great-hearted 
Paul. 

Deeply  as  this  story  must  always  interest  us,  let  us 
not  forget  that  the  result  was  due  not  to  one  man  or  to 
one  people — that  each  race  gave  its  share  to  the  whole : 
Greece,  her  intellect  and  grace ;  Rome,  her  social  in- 
stinct, her  genius  for  discipline  ;  Judaea  her  intensity  of 
belief  and  personal  morality  ;  Egypt  and  the  African 
coast  their  combination  of  Hellenic,  Judaic,  and  Roman 
traditions.  The  task  that  lay  before  the  new  religion 
was  immense.  It  was,  upon  a.  uniform  faith,  to  found 
a  system  of  sound  and  common  morality  ;  to  reform 
the  deep-rooted  evils  of  slavery  ;  to  institute  a  method 
which  should  educate,  teach,  and  guide,  and  bring  out 
the  tenderer,  purer,  and  higher  instincts  of  our  nature. 
The  powers  of  mind  and  of  character  had  been  trained, 
first  by  Greece  and  then  by  Rome.  To  the  Christian 
church  came  the  loftier  mission  of  ruling  the  affections 
and  the  heart. 

From  henceforth  the  history  of  the  world  shows  a  new 
character. 

Now  and  henceforward  we  see  two  elements  in  civi- 
lisation working  side  by  side — the  practical  and  the 
moral.  There  is  now  a  system  to  rule  the  state  and  a 
system  to  act  upon  the  mind  ;  a  body  of  men  to  edu- 
cate, to  guide  and  elevate  the  spirit  and  the  character  of 
the  individual,  as  well  as  a  set  of  rules  to  enforce  the 
laws  and  direct  the  action  of  the  nation.  There  is 
henceforward  the  state  and  the  church.  Hitherto  all 

E 


66  THE    MEAN  INC!    OF    HISTORY 

had  been  confused  ;  statesmen  were  priests  and  teachers  ; 
public  officers  pretended  to  order  men's  lives  by  law,  and 
pretended  in  vain.  Henceforward  for  the  true  sequence 
of  history  we  must  fix  our  view  on  Europe,  on  Western 
Europe  alone  :  we  leave  aside  the  East.  The  half-Roman- 
ised, the  half-Christianised  East  will  pass  to  the  empire 
of  Mohammed,  to  the  Arab,  the  Mongol,  and  the  Turk. 
For  the  true  evolution  of  civilised  life  we  must  regard 
the  heirs  of  time,  the  West,  in  which  is  centred  the 
progress  and  the  future  of  the  race.  Henceforward,  then, 
for  the  ten  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages  which  succeeded 
in  Western  Europe  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire,  we 
have  two  movements  to  watch  together — Feudalism  and 
Catholicism — the  system  of  the  state  and  the  system  of 
the  church  :  let  us  turn  now  to  the  former. 

The  vast  empire  of  Rome  broke  up  with  prolonged 
convulsions.  Its  concentration  in  any  single  hand,  how- 
ever necessary  as  a  transition,  became  too  vast  as  a  per- 
manent system.  It  wanted  a  rural  population  ;  it  was 
wholly  without  local  life.  Long  the  awestruck  barbarians 
stood  pausing  to  attack.  At  length  they  broke  in. 
Ever  bolder  and  more  numerous  tribes  poured  onwards. 
In  wave  after  wave  they  swept  over  the  whole  empire, 
sacking  cities,  laying  waste  the  strongholds,  at  length 
storming  Rome  itself;  and  laws,  learning,  industry,  art, 
civilisation  itself,  seem  swallowed  up  in  the  deluge.  For 
a  moment  it  appeared  that  all  that  was  Roman  had 
vanished.  It  was  submerged,  but  not  destroyed.  Slowly 
the  waters  of  this  overwhelming  invasion  abate.  Slowly 
the  old  Roman  towns  and  their  institutions  begin  to 
appear  above  the  waste  like  the  highest  points  of  a 
flooded  country.  Slowly  the  old  landmarks  reappear 
and  the  forms  of  civilised  existence.  Four  centuries 
were  passed  in  one  continual  ebb  and  flow  ;  but  at  length 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  67 

the  restless  movement  subsided.  One  by  one  the  con- 
quering tribes  settled,  took  root,  and  occupied  the  soil. 
Step  by  step  they  learned  the  arts  of  old  Rome.  At 
length  they  were  transformed  from  the  invaders  into  the 
defenders.  King  after  king  strove  to  give  form  to  the 
heaving  mass,  and  put  an  end  to  this  long  era  of  con- 
fusion. One,  at  length,  the  greatest  of  them  all,  suc- 
ceeded, and  reared  the  framework  of  modern  Europe. 

It  was  the  imperial  Charlemagne,  the  greatest  name 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  who,  like  some  Roman  emperor 
restored  to  life,  marshalled  the  various  tribes  which  had 
settled  in  France,  Germany,  Italy,  and  the  north  of 
Spain,  into  a  single  empire,  beat  back,  in  a  long  life  of 
war,  the  tide  of  invaders  on  the  west,  the  north,  and 
south,  Saxon,  Northman,  and  Saracen,  and  awakened 
anew  in  the  memory  of  nations  the  type  of  civil  govern- 
ment and  organised  society.  His  work  in  itself  was  but 
a  single  and  a  temporary  effort ;  but  in  its  distant  con- 
sequences it  has  left  great  permanent  effects.  It  was 
like  a  desperate  rally  in  the  midst  of  confusion  ;  but  it 
gave  mankind  time  to  recover  much  that  they  had  lost. 
In  his  empire  may  be  traced  the  nucleus  of  the  state 
system  of  Western  Europe ;  by  the  traditions  of  his 
name,  the  modern  monarchies  were  raised  into  power. 
He  too  gave  shape  and  vigour  to  the  first  efforts  of 
public  administration.  But  a  still  greater  result  was  the 
indirect  effect  of  his  life  and  labours.  It  was  by  the 
spirit  of  his  established  rule  that  the  feudal  system 
which  had  been  spontaneously  growing  up  from  beneath 
the  debris  of  the  Roman  empire,  first  found  strength  to 
develop  into  a  methodical  form,  received  an  imperial 
sanction  to  its  scheme,  and  the  type  of  its  graduated 
order  of  rule. 

What  was  this   feudal   system,   and   what   were   its 


68  THE   MEANING   OF    HISTORY 

results  ?  It  may  be  described  as  a  local  organisation  of 
reciprocal  duty  and  privilege.  In  the  first  place,  it  was 
a  system  of  local  defence.  The  knight  was  bound  to 
guard  his  fee,  the  baron  his  barony,  the  count  his  county, 
the  duke  his  duchy.  Then  it  was  a  system  of  local 
government.  The  lord  of  the  manor  had  his  court  of 
justice,  the  great  baron  his  greater  court,  and  the  king  his 
court  above  all.  Then  it  was  a  system  of  local  industry  ; 
the  freeholder  tilled  his  own  fields,  the  knight  was 
responsible  for  the  welfare  of  his  own  lands.  The  lord 
had  an  interest  in  the  prosperity  of  his  lordship.  Hence 
slowly  arose  an  agricultural  industry,  impossible  in  any 
other  way.  The  knight  cleared  the  country  of  robbers, 
or  beat  back  invaders,  whilst  the  husbandman  ploughed 
beneath  his  castle  walls.  The  nation  no  longer,  as 
under  Greece  and  Rome,  was  made  up  of  scattered 
towns.  It  had  a  local  root,  a  rural  population,  and 
complete  system  of  agricultural  life.  The  monstrous 
centralisation  of  Rome  was  gone,  and  a  local  govern- 
ment began. 

But  the  feudal  system  was  not  merely  material,  it  was 
also  moral ;  not  simply  political,  it  was  social  also — nay, 
also  religious.  The  whole  of  society  was  bound  into  a 
hierarchy  or  long  series  of  gradations.  Each  man  had 
his  due  place  and  rank,  his  rights,  and  his  duties.  The 
knight  owed  protection  to  his  men  ;  his  men  owed  their 
services  to  him.  Under  the  Roman  system,  there  had 
been  only  citizens  and  slaves.  Now  there  was  none  so 
high  but  had  grave  duties  to  all  below  ;  none  so  low,  not 
the  meanest  serf,  but  had  a  claim  for  protection.  Hence, 
all  became,  from  king  to  serf,  recognised  members  of 
one  common  society.  Thence  sprang  the  closest  bond 
which  has  ever  bound  man  to  man.  To  the  noble 
natures  of  the  northern  invaders  was  due  the  new  idea 


THE  CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  69 

of  personal  loyalty,  the  spirit  of  truth,  faithfulness, 
devotion,  and  trust,  the  lofty  sense  of  honour  which 
bound  the  warrior  to  his  captain,  the  vassal  to  his  lord, 
the  squire  to  his  knight.  It  ripened  into  the  finest 
temper  which  has  ever  ennobled  the  man  of  action,  the 
essence  of  chivalry  ;  in  its  true  sense  not  dead,  not  des- 
tined to  die — the  temper  of  mercy,  courtesy,  and  truth, 
of  fearlessness  and  trust,  of  a  generous  use  of  power  and 
strength,  of  succour  to  the  weak,  comfort  to  the  poor, 
reverence  for  age,  for  goodness,  and  for  woman  ;  which 
revolts  against  injustice,  oppression,  and  untruth,  and 
never  listens  to  a  call  unmoved.  It  is  not  possible  that 
this  spirit  is  dead.  It  watched  the  cradle  of  modern 
society,  and  is  the  source  of  our  poetry  and  art ;  it  must 
live  for  future  service,  transformed  from  a  military  to  a 
peaceful  society.  It  may  yet  revive  the  seeds  of  trust 
and  duty  between  man  and  man,  inspire  the  labourer 
with  dignity  and  generosity,  raise  the  landlord  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  duty,  and  renew  the  mysterious  bond 
which  unites  all  those  who  labour  in  a  common  work. 

We  turn  to  the  Church,  the  moral  element  which 
pervades  the  Middle  Ages.  Amidst  the  crash  of  the 
falling  empire,  as  darker  grew  the  storm  which  swept 
over  the  visible  State  on  earth,  more  and  more  the 
better  spirits  turned  their  eyes  towards  a  Kingdom 
above  the  earth.  They  turned,  as  the  great  Latin 
father  relates,  amidst  utter  corruption  to  an  entire 
reconstruction  of  morality ;  in  the  wreck  of  all  earthly 
greatness,  they  set  their  hearts  upon  a  future  life,  and 
strove  amidst  anarchy  and  bloodshed  to  found  a  moral 
union  of  society.  Hence  rose  the  Catholic  Church, 
offering  to  the  thoughtful  a  mysterious  and  inspiring 
faith ;  to  the  despairing  and  the  remorseful  a  new  and 
higher  life ;  to  the  wretched,  comfort,  fellowship,  and 


70  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

aid  ;  to  the  perplexed  a  majestic  system  of  belief  and 
practice — in  its  creed  Greek,  in  its  worship  Asiatic,  in 
its  constitution  Roman.  In  it  we  see  the  Roman 
genius  for  organisation  and  law,  transformed  and  re- 
vived. In  the  fall  of  her  material  greatness  Rome's 
social  greatness  survived.  Rome  still  remained  the 
centre  of  the  civilised  world.  Latin  was  still  the 
language  which  bound  men  of  distant  lands  together. 
From  Rome  went  forth  the  edicts  which  were  common 
to  all  Europe.  The  majesty  of  Rome  was  still  the 
centre  of  civilisation.  The  bishop's  court  took  the  place 
of  that  of  the  imperial  governor.  The  peace  of  the 
church  took  the  place  of  the  peace  of  Rome ;  and  from 
the  first,  the  barbarian  invaders  who  overthrew  the 
hollow  greatness  of  the  empire  humbled  themselves 
reverently  before  the  ministers  of  religion. 

The  church  stood  between  the  conqueror  and  the  con- 
quered, and  joined  them  both  in  one.  She  told  to  all- 
Roman  and  barbarian,  slave  or  freeman,  great  or  weak 
— how  there  was  one  God,  one  Saviour  of  all,  one  equal 
soul  in  all,  one  common  judgment,  one  common  life 
hereafter.  She  told  them  how  all,  as  children  of  one 
Father,  were  in  His  eyes  equally  dear ;  how  charity, 
mercy,  humility,  devotion  alone  would  make  them 
worthy  of  His  love ;  and  at  these  words  there  rose  up 
in  the  fine  spirits  of  the  new  races  a  sense  of  brother- 
hood amongst  mankind,  a  desire  for  a  higher  life,  a  zeal 
for  all  the  gentler  qualities  and  the  higher  duties,  such 
as  the  world  had  not  seen  before.  Thus  was  her  first 
task  accomplished,  and  she  founded  a  system  of 
morality  common  to  all  and  possible  to  all.  She 
spoke  to  the  slave  of  his  immortal  soul,  to  the  master 
of  the  guilt  of  slavery.  Master  and  slave  should  meet 
alike  within  her  walls,  and  lie  side  by  side  within  her 


THE   CONNECTION    OF   HISTORY  71 

catacombs ;  and  thus  her  second  task  was  accom- 
plished, and  she  overthrew  for  ever  the  system  of 
slavery,  and  raised  up  the  labourer  into  the  dignity 
of  a  citizen.  Then  she  told  how  their  common  Master, 
of  power  unbounded,  had  loved  the  humble  and  the 
weak.  She  told  of  the  simple  lives  of  saints  and 
martyrs,  their  tender  care  of  the  poorer  brethren,  their 
spirit  of  benevolence,  self-sacrifice,  and  self-abasement ; 
and  thus  the  third  great  task  was  accomplished,  when 
she  placed  the  essence  of  practical  religion  in  care  for 
the  weak,  in  affection  for  the  family,  in  reverence  for 
woman,  in  benevolence  to  all,  and  in  personal  self- 
denial. 

Next,  she  undertook  to  educate  all  alike.  She  pro- 
vided a  body  of  common  teachers ;  she  organised 
schools ;  she  raised  splendid  cathedrals,  where  all 
might  be  brought  into  the  presence  of  the  beautiful, 
and  see  all  forms  of  art  in  their  highest  perfection — 
architecture,  and  sculpture,  and  painting,  and  work  in 
glass,  in  iron,  and  in  wood,  heightened  by  inspiring 
ritual  and  touching  music.  She  accepted  all  without 
thought  of  birth  or  place.  She  gathered  to  herself  all 
the  knowledge  of  the  time,  though  all  was  subordinate 
to  religious  life.  The  priests,  so  far  as  such  were  then 
possible,  were  poets,  historians,  dramatists,  musicians, 
architects,  sculptors,  painters,  judges,  lawyers,  magi- 
strates, ministers,  students  of  science,  engineers,  philo- 
sophers, astronomers,  and  moralists.  Lastly,  she  had 
another  task,  and  she  accomplished  even  that.  It  was 
to  stand  between  the  tyrant  and  his  victim  ;  to  succour 
the  oppressed,  to  humble  the  evil  ruler,  to  moderate  the 
horrors  of  war ;  above  all,  to  join  nation  to  nation,  to 
mediate  between  hostile  races,  to  give  to  civilised 
Europe  some  element  of  union  and  cohesion. 


5^5  THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

Let  us  think  of  this  church — this  humanising  power 
of  the  Middle  Ages — as  it  was  in  its  glory,  not  in  its 
decay.  Let  us  remember  it  as  a  system  of  life  which 
for  ten  centuries  possessed  the  passionate  devotion  of 
the  foremost  spirits  of  their  time  ;  one  which  has  left  us 
a  rich  store  of  thought  and  teaching,  of  wise  precept, 
lofty  poetry,  and  matchless  devotion ;  as  a  system 
which  really  penetrated  and  acted  on  the  lives  of  men. 
Let  us  think  of  it  as  it  was  in  essence — in  its  virtues, 
not  in  its  vices — truly  the  union  of  all  the  men  of 
intellect  and  character  of  their  age  towards  one  common 
end :  not  like  Egyptian  priests,  pretending  to  govern 
by  law ;  not  like  Greek  philosophers,  expounding  to  a 
chosen  sect ;  not  like  modern  savants,  thinking  for 
mere  love  of  thought,  or  mere  love  of  fame,  without 
method  or  concert,  without  moral  guidance,  without 
social  purpose ;  but  a  system  in  which  the  wisest  and 
the  best  men  of  their  day,  themselves  reared  in  a 
common  teaching,  organised  on  a  vast  scale,  and 
directed  by  one  general  rule,  devoted  the  whole  energies 
of  their  brains  and  hearts  in  unison  together,  to  the 
moral  guidance  of  society ;  sought  to  know  only  that 
they  might  teach,  to  teach  only  to  improve,  and  lived 
only  to  instruct,  to  raise,  to  humanise  their  fellow-men. 
Let  us  think  of  it  thus  as  it  was  at  its  best ;  and  in  this 
forget  even  the  cruelty,  the  imposture,  and  the  de- 
gradation of  its  fall ;  let  horror  for  its  vices  and  pity 
for  its  errors  be  lost  in  one  sentiment  of  admiration, 
gratitude,  and  honour,  for  this  the  best  and  the  last  of 
all  the  organised  systems  of  human  society ;  of  all  the 
institutions  of  mankind,  the  most  worthy  of  remem- 
brance and  regret. 

But  if  we  are  generous  in  our  judgment,  let  us  be  just. 
The  Catholic  system  ended,  it  is  most  true,  in  disastrous 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  73 

and  shameful  ruin.  Excellent  in  intention  and  in 
method,  it  was  from  the  first  doomed  to  inevitable 
corruption  from  the  inherent  faults  of  its  constitution  ; 
and  its  intellectual  basis  was  so  distorted  and  pre- 
carious, that  it  was  stained  with  vices  and  crimes  from 
the  very  first  generation.  It  had  trained  and  elevated 
the  noblest  side  of  human  nature — the  religious,  the 
moral,  and  the  social  instincts  of  our  being  ;  and  the 
energy  with  which  it  met  this,  the  prime  want  of  men, 
upheld  it  through  the  long  era  of  its  corruption,  and 
still  upholds  it  in  its  last  pitiable  spasm.  But  with  the 
intellectual  and  with  the  practical  sphere  of  man's  life 
it  was  by  its  nature  incompetent  to  deal.  In  its  zeal 
for  man's  moral  progress  it  had  taken  its  stand  upon  a 
false  and  even  a  preposterous  belief.  Burning  to  subdue 
the  lower  passions  of  man's  nature,  it  had  vainly  hoped 
to  crush  the  practical  instincts  of  his  activity.  It  dis- 
carded with  disdain  the  thoughts  and  labours  of  the 
ancient  world.  It  proclaimed  as  the  ideal  of  human 
life  a  visionary  and  even  a  selfish  asceticism.  For  a 
period,  for  a  long  period,  its  transcendent  and  indis- 
pensable services  maintained  it  in  spite  of  every  defect 
and  vice  ;  but  at  last  the  time  came  when  the  outraged 
instincts  reasserted  their  own,  and  showed  how  hopeless 
is  any  religion  or  system  of  life  not  based  on  a  con- 
ception of  human  nature  as  a  whole,  at  once  complete 
and  true. 

The  church  began  in  indifference  towards  science 
and  contempt  for  material  improvement.  Indifference 
and  contempt  passed  at  length  into  hatred  and  horror ; 
and  it  ended  in  denouncing  science,  and  in  a  bitter 
conflict  with  industry.  At  last  it  had  become,  in  spite 
of  its  better  self,  the  enemy  of  all  progress,  all  thought, 
all  industry,  all  freedom.  It  allied  itself  with  all  that 


74  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

was  retrograde  and  arbitrary.  It  fell  from  bad  to 
worse,  and  settled  into  an  existence  of  timid  repression. 
Hence  it  came  that  the  church,  attempting  to  teach 
upon  a  basis  of  falsehood,  to  direct  man's  active  life 
upon  a  merely  visionary  creed,  to  govern  a  society 
which  it  only  half  understood,  succeeded  only  for  a 
time.  It  was  scarcely  founded  before  it  began  to  break 
up.  It  had  scarcely  put  forth  its  strength  before  it 
began  to  decay.  It  stood  like  one  of  its  own  vast 
cathedrals,  building  for  ages  yet  never  completed  ; 
falling  to  ruin  whilst  yet  unfinished  ;  filling  us  with  a 
sense  of  beauty  and  of  failure ;  a  monument  of  noble 
design  and  misdirected  strength.  It  fell  like  the  Roman 
empire,  with  prolonged  convulsion  and  corruption,  and 
left  us  a  memory  of  cruelty,  ignorance,  tyranny,  rapa- 
city, and  vice,  which  we  too  often  forget  were  but  the 
symptoms  and  consequences  of  its  fall. 

We  have  stood  beside  the  rise  and  fall  of  four  great 
stages  of  the  history  of  mankind.  The  priestly  systems 
of  Asia,  the  intellectual  activity  of  Greece,  the  military 
empire  of  Rome,  the  moral  government  of  Catholicism, 
had  each  been  tried  in  turn,  and  each  had  been  found 
wanting.  Each  had  disdained  the  virtues  of  the  others  ; 
each  had  failed  to  incorporate  the  others.  With  the  fall 
of  the  Catholic  and  feudal  system,  we  enter  upon  the 
age  of  modern  society.  It  is  an  age  of  dissolution,  re- 
construction, variety,  movement,  and  confusion.  It  is 
an  era  in  which  all  the  former  elements  reassert  them- 
selves with  new  life,  all  that  had  ever  been  attempted  is 
renewed  again  ;  an  era  of  amazing  complexity,  industry, 
and  force,  in  which  every  belief,  opinion,  and  idea  is 
criticised,  transformed,  and  expanded.  Every  institu- 
tion of  society  and  habit  of  life  is  thoroughly  unsettled 
and  remodelled ;  all  the  sciences  are  constructed — art, 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  75 

industry,  policy,  religion,  philosophy,  and  morality  are 
developed  with  a  vigorous  and  constant  growth ;  but, 
withal,  it  is  an  era  in  which  all  is  individual,  separate, 
and  free :  without  system,  or  unity,  or  harmony,  such  as 
had  marked  the  four  preceding  epochs. 

First,  the  feudal  system  broke  up  under  the  influence 
of  the  very  industry  which  it  had  itself  fostered  and 
reared.  The  great  fiefs,  as  they  became  settled,  gradually 
gathered  into  masses ;  one  by  one  they  fell  into  the 
hands  of  kings,  and  at  length  upon  the  ruins  of  feudalism 
arose  the  great  monarchies.  The  feudal  atoms  crystal- 
lised into  the  actual  nations  of  Europe.  The  variety 
and  dispersion  of  the  feudal  system  vanished.  A  central 
monarchy  established  one  uniform  order,  police,  and 
justice ;  and  modern  political  society,  as  we  know  it, 
rose.  The  invention  of  gunpowder  had  now  made  the 
knight  helpless,  the  bullet  pierced  his  mail,  and  stand- 
ing armies  took  the  place  of  the  feudal  militia.  The 
discovery  of  the  compass  had  opened  the  ocean  to  com- 
merce. The  free  towns  expanded  with  a  new  industry, 
and  covered  the  continent  with  infinitely  varied  pro- 
ducts. The  knight  became  the  landlord,  the  man-at- 
arms  became  the  tenant,  the  serf  became  the  free 
labourer,  and  the  emancipation  of  the  worker,  the  first, 
the  greatest  victory  of  the  church,  was  complete. 

Thus,  at  last,  the  energies  of  men  ceased  to  be  occupied 
by  war,  to  which  a  small  section  of  the  society  was  now 
permanently  devoted.  Peace  became  in  fact  the  natural, 
not  the  accidental,  state  of  man.  Society  passed  into  its 
final  phase  of  industrial  existence.  Peace,  industry,  and 
wealth  again  gave  scope  to  thought.  The  riches  of  the 
earth  were  ransacked,  new  continents  were  opened,  inter- 
course increased  over  the  whole  earth.  Greeks,  flying 
from  Constantinople  before  the  Turks,  spread  over 


76  THE   MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

Europe,  bringing  with  them  books,  instruments,  inscrip- 
tions, gems,  and  sculptures  : — the  science,  the  literature, 
and  the  inventions  of  the  ancient  world,  long  stored  up 
on  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus.  Columbus  discovered 
America.  The  Portuguese  sailed  round  Africa  to  India  ; 
a  host  of  daring  adventurers  penetrated  untraversed  seas 
and  lands.  Man  entered  at  last  upon  the  full  dominion 
of  the  earth.  Copernicus,  Kepler,  and  Galileo  unveiled 
the  mystery  of  the  world,  and  made  a  revolution  in  all 
thought.  Mathematics,  chemistry,  botany,  and  medi- 
cine, preserved  mainly  by  the  Arabs  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  were  again  taken  up  almost  from  the  point  where 
the  Greeks  had  left  them.  The  elements  of  the  material 
earth  were  eagerly  explored.  The  system  of  experi- 
ment (which  Bacon  reduced  to  a  method)  was  worked 
out  by  the  common  labour  of  philosophers  and  artists. 
For  the  first  time  the  human  form  was  dissected  and 
explored.  Physiology,  as  a  science,  began.  Human 
history  and  society  became  the  subject  of  regular  and 
enlightened  thought.  Politics  became  a  branch  of 
philosophy.  With  all  this  the  new  knowledge  was 
scattered  by  the  printing-press,  itself  the  product  and 
the  stimulus  of  the  movement ;  in  a  word,  the  religious 
ban  was  raised  from  off  the  human  powers.  The  ancient 
world  was  linked  on  to  the  modern.  Science,  specula- 
tion, and  invention  lived  again  after  twelve  centuries  of 
trance.  A  fresh  era  of  progress  opened  with  the  new- 
found treasures  of  the  past. 

Next,  before  this  transformation  of  ideas  the  church 
collapsed.  Its  hollow  dogmas  were  exposed,  its  narrow 
prejudices  ridiculed,  its  corruptions  probed.  Men's  con- 
sciences and  brains  rose  up  against  an  institution  which 
pretended  to  teach  without  knowledge,  and  to  govern 
though  utterly  disorganised.  Convulsion  followed  on 


THE   CONNECTION   OF    HISTORY  77 

convulsion  ;  the  struggle  we  call  the  Reformation  opened, 
and  led  to  a  series  of  religious  wars,  which  for  a  century 
and  a  half  shook  Europe  to  its  foundations.  At  the 
close  of  this  long  era  of  massacre  and  war,  it  was  found 
that  the  result  achieved  was  small  indeed.  Europe  had 
been  split  into  two  religious  systems,  of  which  neither 
one  nor  the  other  could  justify  its  enormous  preten- 
sions. Admiration  for  the  noble  characters  of  the  first 
Reformers,  for  their  intensity,  truth,  and  zeal,  their 
heroic  lives  and  deaths,  the  affecting  beauty  of  their 
purposes  and  hopes,  is  yet  possible  to  us,  whilst  we  con- 
fess that  the  Protestant,  like  the  Catholic  faith,  had 
failed  to  organise  human  industry,  society,  and  thought ; 
that  both  had  failed  to  satisfy  the  wants  and  hopes  of 
man.  More  and  more  have  thought  and  knowledge 
grown  into  even  fiercer  conflict  with  authority  of  Book 
or  Pope ;  more  and  more  in  Catholic  France,  as  in 
Protestant  England,  does  the  moral  guidance  of  men 
pass  from  the  hands  of  priests,  or  sect,  to  be  assumed, 
if  it  be  assumed  at  all,  by  the  poet,  the  philosopher,  the 
essayist,  and  even  the  journalist ;  more  and  more  do 
church  and  sect  stand  dumb  and  helpless  in  presence 
of  the  evils  with  which  society  is  rife. 

Side  by  side  the  religious  and  the  political  system 
tottered  in  ruin  together.  From  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  now  one,  now  the  other  was  furiously  assailed. 
For  the  most  part,  both  were  struck  at  once.  The  long 
religious  wars  of  Germany  and  France  ;  the  defence  by 
the  heroic  William  the  Silent  of  the  free  Republic  of 
Holland  against  the  might  of  Spain ;  the  glorious 
repulse  of  its  Armada  by  England  ;  the  immortal  revo- 
lution achieved  by  our  greatest  statesman,  Cromwell ; 
the  battle  of  his  worthy  successor,  William  of  Orange, 
against  the  oppression  of  Louis  XIV.,  were  all  but  parts 


78  THE   MEANINCl   OF    HISTORY 

of  one  long  struggle,  which  lasted  during  the  whole  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries — a  struggle  in 
which  religion  and  politics  both  equally  shared,  a 
struggle  between  the  old  powers  of  Feudalism  and 
Catholicism  on  the  one  side,  with  all  the  strength  of 
ancient  systems,  against  the  half-formed,  ill-governed 
force  of  freedom,  industry,  and  thought ;  a  long  and 
varied  struggle  in  which  aristocracy,  monarchy,  privi- 
leged caste,  arbitrary  and  military  power,  church 
formalism,  dogmatism,  superstition,  narrow  teaching, 
visionary  worship,  and  hollow  creeds,  were  each  in  turn 
attacked,  and  each  in  turn  prostrated. 

A  general  armistice  followed  this  long  and  exhaust- 
ing struggle.  The  principles  of  Protestantism,  Consti- 
tutionalism, Toleration,  and  the  balance  of  power,  estab- 
lished a  system  of  compromise,  and  for  a  century 
restored  some  order  in  the  political  and  religious  world. 
But  in  the  world  of  ideas  the  contest  grew  still  keener. 
Industry  expanded  to  incredible  proportions,  and  the 
social  system  was  transformed  before  it.  Thought 
soared  into  unimagined  regions,  and  reared  a  new  realm 
of  science,  discovery,  and  art.  Wild  social  and  religious 
visions  arose  and  passed  through  the  spirit  of  mankind. 
At  last  the  forms  and  ideas  of  human  life,  material, 
social,  intellectual,  and  moral,  had  all  been  utterly 
transformed,  and  the  fabric  of  European  society  rested 
in  peril  on  the  crumbling  crust  of  the  past. 

The  great  convulsion  came.  The  gathering  storm  of 
centuries  burst  at  length  in  the  French  Revolution. 
Then,  indeed,  it  seemed  that  chaos  was  come  again.  It 
was  an  earthquake  blotting  out  all  trace  of  what  had 
been,  engulfing  the  most  ancient  structures,  destroying 
all  former  landmarks,  and  scattering  society  in  confusion 
and  dismay.  It  spreads  from  Paris  through  every  corner 


THE   CONNECTION   OF   HISTORY  79 

of  France,  from  France  to  Italy,  to  Spain,  to  Germany, 
to  England  ;  it  pierces,  like  the  flash  from  a  vast  storm- 
cloud,  through  every  obstacle  of  matter,  space,  or  form. 
It  kindles  all  ideas  of  men,  and  gives  wild  energy  to 
all  purposes  of  action.  For  though  terrible,  it  was  not 
deadly.  It  came  not  to  destroy  but  to  construct,  not 
to  kill  but  to  give  life.  And  through  the  darkest  and 
bloodiest  whirl  of  the  chaos  there  rose  up  clear  on  high, 
before  the  bewildered  eyes  of  men,  a  vision  of  a  new 
and  greater  era  yet  to  come — of  brotherhood,  of  free- 
dom, and  of  union,  of  never-ending  progress,  of  mutual 
help,  trust,  co-operation,  and  goodwill  ;  an  era  of  true 
knowledge,  of  real  science,  and  practical  discovery  ;  but, 
above  all,  an  era  of  active  industry  for  all,  of  the  dignity 
and  consecration  of  labour,  of  a  social  life  just  to  all, 
common  to  all,  and  beneficent  to  all. 

That  great  revolution  is  not  ended.  The  questions 
it  proposed  are  not  yet  solved.  We  live  still  in  the 
heavings  of  its  shock.  It  yet  remains  with  us  to  show 
how  the  last  vestiges  of  the  feudal,  hereditary,  and 
aristocratic  systems  may  give  place  to  a  genuine,  an 
orderly,  and  permanent  republic  ;  how  the  trammels  of 
a  faith  long  grown  useless  and  retrograde  may  be 
removed  without  injury  to  the  moral,  religious,  and 
social  instincts,  which  are  still  much  entangled  in  it ; 
how  industry  may  be  organised,  and  the  workman 
enrolled  with  full  rights  of  citizenship,  a  free,  a  powerful, 
and  a  cultivated  member  of  the  social  body.  Such  is 
the  task  before  us.  The  ground  is  all  prepared,  the 
materials  are  abundant  and  sufficient.  We  have  a  rich 
harvest  of  science,  a  profusion  of  material  facilities,  a 
vast  collection  of  the  products,  ideas,  and  inventions  of 
past  ages.  Every  vein  of  human  life  is  full ;  every 
faculty  has  been  trained  to  full  efficiency ;  every  want 


8O  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

of  our  nature  is  supplied.  We  need  now  only  harmony, 
order,  union  ;  we  need  only  to  group  into  a  whole  these 
powers  and  gifts :  the  task  before  us  is  to  discover 
some  complete  and  balanced  system  of  life  ;  some 
common  basis  of  belief;  some  object  for  the  im- 
perishable religious  instincts  and  aspirations  of  man- 
kind ;  some  faith  to  bind  the  existence  of  man  to  the 
visible  universe  around  him  ;  some  common  social  end 
for  thought,  action,  and  feeling  ;  some  common  ground 
for  teaching,  studying,  or  judging.  We  need  to  extract 
the  essence  of  all  older  forms  of  civilisation,  to  combine 
them,  and  harmonise  them  in  one,  a  system  of  existence 
which  may  possess  something  of  the  calm,  the  complete- 
ness, and  the  symmetry  of  the  earliest  societies  of  men  ; 
the  zeal  for  truth,  knowledge,  science,  and  improvement, 
which  marks  the  Greek,  with  something  of  his  grace,  his 
life,  his  radiant  poetry  and  art ;  the  deep  social  spirit  of 
Rome,  its  political  sagacity,  its  genius  for  government, 
law,  and  freedom,  its  noble  sense  of  public  life ;  above 
all  else,  the  constancy,  earnestness,  and  tenderness  of 
the  mediaeval  faith,  with  its  discipline  of  devotion  to  the 
service  of  a  Power  far  greater  than  self,  with  its  zeal  for 
the  spiritual  union  of  mankind.  We  have  to  combine 
these  with  the  industry,  the  knowledge,  the  variety,  the 
activity,  the  humanity,  of  modern  life. 


CHAPTER    III 

SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY 

OF  all  subjects  of  study,  it  is  History  which  stands 
most  sorely  in  need  of  a  methodical  plan  of  reading. 
The  choice  of  books  is  nowhere  a  more  perplexing 
task  :  for  the  subject  is  practically  infinite  ;  the  volumes 
impossible  to  number  ;  and  the  range  of  fact  inter- 
minable. There  are  some  three  or  four  thousand  years 
of  recorded  history,  and  the  annals,  it  may  be,  of  one 
hundred  different  peoples,  each  forming  continuous 
societies  of  men  during  many  centuries.  Many  famous 
histories  in  one  or  two  thousand  pages  cover  at  most 
about  half  a  century  :  and  that  for  the  life  of  one  nation 
alone.  Macaulay's  fascinating  story-book  occupied  him, 
we  are  told,  more  years  of  labour  to  compose  than,  in 
some  of  its  periods,  the  events  occupied  in  fact  A 
brilliant  writer  has  given  us  twelve  picturesque  volumes 
which  almost  exactly  cover  the  life  of  one  queen.  The 
standard  history  of  France  extends  to  10,000  pages. 
And  it  is  whispered  at  Oxford  that  a  conscientious 
annalist  of  the  Civil  War  completes  the  history  of  each 
year  in  successive  volumes  by  the  continuous  study  of 
an  equal  period.  At  this  rate  forty  thousand  years 
would  hardly  suffice  to  compile  the  annals  of  mankind. 

In  this  infinite  sea  of  histories,  memoirs,  biographies, 
and  annals,  how  is  a  busy  man  to  choose  ?  He  cannot 
read  the  forty  thousand  volumes — nor  four  thousand, 

F 


82  THE   MEANING   OF    HISTORY 

nor  four  hundred.  Which  are  the  most  needful  ?  which 
period,  which  movement,  which  people,  is  most  deserving 
of  study?  When  I  say  study,  I  am  not  thinking  of 
students,  but  of  ordinary  fireside  reading  in  our  mother- 
tongue  for  busy  men  and  women  :  men  and  women 
who  cannot  give  their  whole  lives  to  libraries,  who, 
'  like  the  ancient  Greeks,'  as  Disraeli  says,  know  no 
language  but  their  own,  and  who  are  not  going  in  for 
competitive  examinations — if,  indeed,  these  islands  still 
hold  man,  woman,  boy,  or  girl  who  has  never  caught 
that  mental  influenza,  the  examination  plague.  Learned 
persons  and  literary  persons  (which  is  not  always  the 
same  thing)  are  apt  to  assume  that  every  one  has  of 
course  read  all  the  ordinary  books  ;  they  never  speak 
about  '  standard '  works,  in  every  gentleman's  library, 
but,  alas  !  not  always  in  every  gentleman's  head.  They 
give  little  help  to  the  general  reader,  assuming  that 
every  schoolboy  has  the  dynasties  of  Egyptian  kings  at 
his  finger's  end,  and  can  repeat  the  list  of  the  Popes 
backwards,  as  Macaulay  did.  No  doubt,  as  schoolboys 
and  schoolgirls,  the  week  after  we  had  '  floored '  that 
second  history  paper  in  the  final,  we  could  most  of  us 
perform  these  feats  of  memory.  But  many  of  us  have- 
forgotten  these  dates  and  names,  have  got  rather  mixed 
about  our  Egyptian  dynasties,  and  are  even  somewhat 
shaky  with  our  Bourbons,  Plantagenets,  and  Hohen- 
staufens.  To  those  of  us  in  such  a  case,  it  is  tantalising 
to  be  dazzled  by  the  learned  with  the  latest  cuneiform 
inscription,  or  the  last  newly  excavated  barrow,  which 
finally  decides  the  site  of  some  'scuffle  of  kites  and 
crows '  in  the  seventh  century. 

I  propose  to  myself  to  speak  about  a  few  simple  old 
books  of  general  history,  which  to  historians  and  the 
learned  are  matters  of  A  B  C  ;  just  as  Mr.  Cook's  obliging 


SOME  GREAT  BOOKS  OF   HISTORY  83 

guides  personally  conduct  the  untravelled  to  Paris, 
Venice,  and  Rome.  We  are  as  ambitious  and  wide- 
roaming  nowadays  in  our  reading  as  in  our  touring. 
The  travelled  world  hardly  considers  it  leaving  home, 
unless  it  is  bound  for  Central  Asia,  the  Pacific,  or 
Fusiyama.  There  are,  however,  still  some  fine  things 
in  the  old  country  which  every  one  has  not  seen  ;  and 
my  humble  task  is  simply  to  act  as  cicerone  to  those 
who  seek  to  visit  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives  the 
great  fields  of  eternal  history,  who  have  but  limited 
time  at  their  disposal,  who  could  not  find  their  way 
without  a  guide,  and  speak  no  foreign  tongue. 

Without  some  organic  unity  in  its  conception,  history 
tends  to  become  literary  curiosity  and  display,  weakening 
our  mental  force  rather  than  strengthening  it  History 
cannot  mean  the  record  of  all  the  facts  that  ever 
happened  and  the  biographies  of  all  those  whose  lives 
are  recorded  ;  for  these  are  infinite.  There  is  a  type  of 
bookman,  most  frequently  met  with  in  Germany,  to 
whom  the  reading  and  the  making  of  books  seem  to 
be  functions  of  nature,  as  it  is  a  function  of  nature 
for  the  cow  to  eat  grass  and  to  give  milk  ;  men  to 
whom  it  is  a  matter  of  absolute  unconcern  what  is  the 
subject  of  the  book,  the  matter,  origin,  or  ultimate  use 
of  the  book,  provided  only  the  book  be  new.  If  a 
vacant  gap  can  be  discovered  in  the  jungle  of  books 
where  a  spare  hole  can  be  filled,  it  matters  no  more  to 
the  author  what  end  the  book  may  serve,  than  it 
concerns  the  cow  what  becomes  of  its  milk.  The  cow 
has  to  secrete  fresh  milk,  and  the  author  has  to  secrete 
a  new  work.  And  there  is  a  type  of  historian  to  whom 
all  human  events  are  equally  material.  It  is  not  the 
historian's  concern,  they  think,  to  pick  and  choose,  or 
to  prefer  one  fact  to  another.  All  facts  accurately 


84  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

recorded  are  truth :  and  to  set  them  forth  in  a  very  big 
octavo  volume  is  history. 

The  true  object  of  history  is  to  show  us  the  life  of 
the  human  race  in  its  fulness,  and  to  follow  up  the  tale 
of  its  continuous  and  difficult  evolution.  The  conception 
of  the  progress  of  civilisation  in  intelligible  sequence, 
is  the  greatest  achievement  of  modern  thought.  History 
is  the  biography  of  civilised  man  :  it  can  no  more  be  cut 
into  absolute  sections  than  can  the  biography  of  a  single 
life.  And  to  devote  our  sole  interest  to  some  small 
period,  country,  or  race  is  as  rational  as  it  would  be  to 
take  a  few  years  to  stand  for  the  life-story  of  a  great 
hero.  That  human  history  makes  one  intelligible  bio- 
graphy does  not  imply  that  we  have  to  load  our  memories 
with  an  interminable  roll  of  facts,  dates,  and  names. 
This  long  record  may  be  grouped  into  a  manageable 
series  of  dominant  phases.  To  understand  the  spirit 
and  character  of  each  of  these  phases  is  the  root  of  the 
matter.  The  events  and  persons  are  manifestations  of 
that  character,  and  serve  to  illustrate  and  vivify  the 
spirit.  History  becomes  '  the  old  almanack  '  which  the 
dull  cynic  called  it,  when  we  treat  it  from  the  photo- 
graphic, the  local,  the  tribal  point  of  view,  instead  of  the 
human  and  the  organic  point  of  view. 

Neither  recondite  researches  nor  novel  theories  are 
needed  to  decide  what  are  the  leading  epochs  and 
dominant  phases  in  general  history.  The  world  has 
ong  been  agreed  upon  them,  with  some  variations  in 
detail,  and  modifications  in  the  manner  of  subsections. 
For  practical  purposes  they  may  be  grouped  into  six. 

I.  The  Early  Oriental  Theocracies. — These  are  the 
great  stationary  systems,  held  together  by  dominant 
religious  discipline,  and  the  pressure  of  social  custom. 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  85 

The  types  of  these  are  the  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  Persian, 
and  Indian  theocratic  monarchies,  and  the  variations  we 
find  in  the  Chinese,  Buddhist,  Japanese  empires,  or  to 
some  extent  in  modern  Mahometan  kingdoms.  These 
account  for  vast  periods  of  history,  and  for  far  the  largest 
portions  of  the  planet. 

It  is  specially  significant  that  the  Fetichist,  or  spon- 
taneous Nature-worshipping  epochs  of  human  life,  have 
no  recorded  history  ;  although  they  form  far  the  longest 
epochs  in  time,  and  are  far  the  most  extensive  in  space. 
History,  in  the  sense  of  recorded  fact,  is  one  of  the  fine 
creations  of  Theocracy  and  the  great  sacerdotal  state- 
organisations.  The  history  of  the  Nature-worshippers 
has  to  be  gathered  from  analogy,  remnants,  and  extant 
tribes.  It  has  neither  record,  names,  dates,  nor  facts. 

II.  The  Rise  and  Development  of  the  Greek  World. — 
This  involves  the  story  of  the  separate  republics,  of  the 
intellectual    activity,  personal  freedom,  and   individual 
self-assertion  characteristic  of  the  Hellenic  spirit.     If  a 
subsection  were  here  inserted,  it  would  be  (II.#)  the  rise, 
development,  and  dissolution  of  Alexander's  empire. 

III.  The  Rise  and  Consolidation  of  the  Roman  World. 
—The  origin  of  the    Republic,  the   formation  of  the 

dictatorial  system,  the  ultimate  dissolution  of  the  bi- 
furcated Roman  empire.  Here  also,  if  subsections 
were  inserted,  the  period  of  a  thousand  years  falls  into 
two  divisions :  (a)  that  of  the  Republic,  down  to  Julius 
Caesar ;  (£)  that  of  the  Empire,  down  to  Justinian. 

IV.  The  Catholic  and  Feudal  World :  known  as  the 
Middle  Ages. — This   epoch,  though  it  has  the  double 
aspect,  Catholic  and   Feudal,  cannot  be  grouped  into 


86  THE    M  FAX  ING   OF    HISTORY 

divisions.  For  Catholicism  and  Feudalism  are  contem- 
porary, co-ordinate,  and  indissolubly  associated  move- 
ments. They  imply  each  other.  They  are  converse 
phases  ;  but  not  successive  or  distinct  epochs. 

V.  The  Formation  and  Development  of  the  Great 
European  States. — This  includes  the  rise  and  growth  of 
the  monarchies  of  modern  times — the  Renascence  of 
Learning,  with  Humanism,  the  Reformation,  and  what 
we  call  Modern  History  proper,  down  to  the  last  century. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  complex  of  all  the  epochs : 
and  it  may  properly  be  divided  into  subsections 
thus : — 

V.  (a)  The  rise  and  consolidation  of  the  State  System 
of  modern  Europe,  with  the  intellectual  and 
artistic  revival  that  followed  it. 

V.  (/>)  The  rise,  issue,  and  settlement  of  the  anti- 
Catholic  Reformation,  and  the  religious  wars 
that  it  involved,  down  to  the  Peace  of  West- 
phalia. 

V.  (c)  The  struggle  between  the  monarchical  and  the 
republican  principles  in  Italy,  Switzerland, 
Spain,  Holland,  and  England. 

V.  (d)  The   great  territorial  and  mercantile  wars  in 

Europe,  and  the  struggle  for  the  Balance  of 
Power,  down  to  the  close  of  the  Seven  Years 
War. 

VI.  The  Political  and  Industrial  Revolution  of  the 
Modern  World. — This  would  include  the  rise  and  con- 
solidation of  Prussia,  of  the  United  States  ;  the  intel- 
lectual, scientific,  and  industrial  revolution  of  the  last 
century  ;   the   French    Revolution,   and   the  wars   that 
issued    out    of    it ;    the    development   of   transmarine 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  87 

empires  and  international  communication  ;  Democracy 
and  Socialism  in  their  various  types. 

These  six  great  phases  of  human  civilisation  may  be 
mentally  kept  apart  for  purposes  of  clear  thought,  and 
as  wide  generalisations  ;  but  some  of  them  practically 
overlap,  and  blend  into  each  other.  And  it  is  only 
whilst  we  keep  our  eyes  intent  on  the  world's  stage, 
rather  than  some  local  movement,  that  these  phases 
appear  to  be  distinct.  The  vast  ages  of  the  Eastern 
and  Egyptian  Theocracies  are  separate  enough  both  in 
time  and  in  spirit.  But  the  Greek  and  Roman  worlds 
are  to  some  extent  contemporary,  and  at  last  they  melt 
into  one  .compound  whole,  when  Rome  incorporated 
Greece :  its  territory,  literature,  culture,  and  art.  The 
whole  mental  apparatus,  and  finally  the  manners,  of  the 
empire  became  Greek  ;  until  at  last  the  capital  of  the 
Roman  world  was  transferred  to  a  Greek  city,  and  the 
so-called  '  Romans  '  spoke  Greek  and  not  Latin.  Thu.s 
we  may,  for  many  purposes,  treat  the  Graeco-Roman 
world  as  one  :  and  in  fact  combine  the  second  and  the 
third  epochs. 

What  we  call  the  Mediaeval  phase  is  very  sharply 
marked  off  from  its  predecessor  by  the  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  it  seems  easy  enough  to  distinguish  our 
fourth  from  our  third  epoch,  both  in  time  and  in  char- 
acter. But  this  holds  good  only  for  Europe  as  a 
whole ;  and  it  is  not  so  easy,  if  we  take  Byzantine 
history  by  itself,  to  determine  the  point  at  which  the 
imperial  government  at  Constantinople  ceases  to  be 
Graeco-Roman,  and  begins  to  be  Mediaeval.  Nor,  indeed, 
is  it  quite  easy  to  fix  a  date  or  a  name,  when  the  Papacy 
ceased  to  belong  to  the  ancient  world,  and  came  to  be 
the  spiritual  centre  of  the  mediaeval  world.  Again,  the 
modern  world  is  very  definitely  marked  off  from  the 


88  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

mediaeval,  and  we  can  with  precision  fix  on  the  second 
half  of  the  fifteenth  century  as  the  date  of  its  definitive 
settlement.  But  if  we  keep  our  attention  solely  on  the 
history  of  the  church,  of  literature,  or  of  thought,  the 
dissolution  of  the  mediaeval  world  is  seen  to  be  preparing 
quite  a  century  earlier  than  the  taking  of  Constantinople 
by  the  Turks. 

Our  sixth  epoch,  the  age  of  the  Revolution,  is  only 
the  rapid  and  violent  form  of  a  process  which  has  been 
going  on  since  the  general  use  of  printing,  of  guns,  and 
the  era  of  ocean  trade  and  accumulated  wealth.  It  had 
been  in  operation  in  all  the  attacks  on  the  Catholic 
doctrines  and  institutions,  in  the  revival  of  ancient  learn- 
ing and  the  advance  of  science,  in  the  consolidation  of 
the  European  kingdoms ;  and  even  long  before  in  the 
labours  of  such  men  as  Roger  Bacon,  Dante,  Langland, 
Wickliffe,  Huss,  and  Bruno.  For  these  reasons  the 
revolutionary  agitation  of  the  last  century  and  a  half  is 
nothing  but  the  more  intense  and  conscious  form  of  the 
movement  to  found  a  new  modern  world  which  began 
with  the  decay  of  Catholicism  and  Feudalism. 

Therefore,  if  we  are  desirous  of  keeping  in  the  highest 
generalisations  of  history,  and  indeed  for  many  practical 
purposes,  the  six  great  epochs  of  universal  history  may 
be  reduced  to  these  four : — 

1.  The  Ancient  Monarchies — or  the  Theocratic  age, 

2.  The  Graco-Roman  world — or  the  Classical. 

3.  The  Catholic  and  Feudal  world — or  the  Mediceval. 

4.  The  Modern — or  the  Revolutionary  world  of  Free 

Thought  and  Free  Life. 

These  dominant  epochs  (whether  we  treat  them  as  six 
or  as  grouped  into  four)  should  each  be  kept  co-ordinate 
and  clear  in  our  minds,  as  mutually  dependent  on  each 


SOME  GREAT  BOOKS  OF  HISTORY        89 

other,  and  each  as  an  inseparable  part  of  a  living  whole. 
No  conception  of  history  would  be  adequate,  or  other 
than  starved  and  stunted,  which  entirely  kept  out  of 
sight  any  one  of  these  indispensable  and  characteristic 
epochs.  They  are  all  indissoluble  ;  yet  utterly  different, 
and  radically  contrasted,  just  as  the  child  is  to  the  man, 
or  the  man  to  the  woman  ;  and  for  the  same  reason — 
that  they  are  forms  of  one  organic  humanity. 

It  follows,  that  it  is  not  at  all  the  history  of  our  own 
country  which  is  all-important,  overshadowing  all  the 
rest,  nor  the  history  of  the  times  nearest  to  our  own. 
From  the  spiritual,  and  indeed  the  scientific,  point  of 
view,  if  history  be  the  continuous  biography  of  the 
evolution  of  the  human  race,  it  may  well  be  that  the 
history  of  remoter  times,  which  have  the  least  resem- 
blance to  our  own,  may  often  be  the  more  valuable 
to  us,  as  correcting  national  prejudices  and  the  narrow 
ideas  bred  in  us  by  daily  custom,  whilst  it  is  the  wider 
outlook  of  universal  history  that  alone  can  teach  us  all 
the  vast  possibilities  and  latent  forces  in  human  society, 
and  the  incalculable  limits  of  variation  which  are  open 
to  man's  civilisation.  The  history  of  other  races,  and 
of  very  different  systems,  may  be  of  all  things  the 
best  to  correct  our  insular  vanities,  and  our  conventional 
prejudices.  We  have  indeed  to  know  the  history  of  our 
own  country,  of  the  later  ages.  But  the  danger  is,  that 
we  may  know  little  other  history. 

Thus  one  who  had  a  grasp  on  the  successive  phases  of 
civilisation  from  the  time  of  Moses  until  our  own  day  ; 
vividly  conceiving  the  essential  features  of  Egyptian, 
Assyrian,  Chaldean,  and  Persian  society ;  who  felt  the 
inner  heart  of  the  classical  world,  and  who  was  in  touch 
with  the  soul  of  the  mediaeval  religion  and  chivalry — 
would  know  more  of  true  history  than  one  who  was 


90  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

simply  master  of  the  battles  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  could  catalogue,  with  dates  and  names,  the  annals 
of  each  German  duchy,  and  each  Italian  republic.  No 
doubt,  for  college  examinations,  they  wring  from  raw 
lads,  as  Milton  says,  '  like  blood  from  the  nose,'  the  de- 
tails of  the  Saxon  coinage,  and  the  latest  German  theory 
of  the  mark-system.  These  things  are  essential  to 
examinations  and  prizes,  and  the  good  boy  will  give  his 
whole  mind  to  them.  But  they  are  far  from  essential 
to  an  intelligible  understanding  of  the  course  which  has 
been  followed  in  the  marvellous  unfolding  of  our  human 
destiny.  To  see  this,  in  all  the  imposing  unity  of  the 
great  drama,  it  is  not  enough  to  be  crammed  with  cata- 
logues of  official  and  military  incidents.  It  is  needful 
to  have  a  living  sense  of  the  characteristic  types  of  life 
which  succeeded  each  other  in  such  glaring  contrast, 
and  often  with  such  deadly  hatred,  through  the  dominant 
phases  of  man's  society  on  earth. 

Our  present  business  is  to  select  a  small  choice  of 
books  of  history,  which  are  of  permanent  and  daily- 
resource  to  the  general  reader  of  English,  and  which 
have  that  charm  and  force  of  insight  that  no  manual 
or  school-book  can  possess.  And  we  may  begin  with 
the  fountain-head  of  primitive  story,  with  the  Father  of 
history — Herodotus.  Every  one  who  reads  seriously  at 
all,  every  man,  woman,  and  child  who  has  ideas  of  any 
book  above  a  yellow-covered  novel,  should  know  some- 
thing of  this  most  simple,  fascinating,  and  instructive  of 
historians.  In  schools  and  colleges  a  thorough  mastery 
of  Herodotus  has  long  been  the  foundation  of  a  historical 
education.  But  he  deserves  to  be  the  familiar  friend  of 
every  sensible  reader. 

This  is  the  oldest  volume  of  secular  history  that  has 
reached  us  in  anything  like  a  complete  state :  and  here 


SOME    GREAT    BOOKS    OF    HISTORY  91 

in  the  earliest  books  of  Herodotus  we  may  watch  the 
first  naive  expression  of  the  insatiable  curiosity  of  the 
Hellenic  mind  brought  face  to  face  with  the  primeval 
theocracies  of  the  Oriental  world.  It  is  a  source  of 
perennial  delight  to  observe  how  the  keen,  busy,  inquisi- 
tive, fearless  Greek  comes  up  to  the  venerable  monu- 
ments of  the  East,  and  probes  them  with  his  critical 
acumen.  We  may  gather  rich  lessons  in  philosophy, 
and  not  merely  lessons  in  history  and  the  story  of  man's 
progress,  if  we  follow  up  this  European,  logical,  eager, 
and  almost  modern  observer,  as  he  analyses  and  recounts 
the  ways  of  the  unchanging  Past  in  Africa  or  in  Asia. 
We  seem  to  be  standing  beside  the  infant  lispings  of 
critical  judgment,  at  the  cradle  of  our  social  and  political 
institutions,  at  the  first  tentative  steps  of  that  long 
development  of  society  which  has  brought  us  to  the 
world  of  to-day.  What  a  prolonged  epic  of  revolution 
in  thought  and  in  politics  lay  hid  in  such  a  phrase  of 
Herodotus  as  this  :  '  The  priests  do  say,  but  I  think — ,' 
or  in  the  tale  of  the  map  of  Hecatseus,  or  the  embassy 
of  Aristagoras  to  the  Greeks  of  the  mainland  !  We  trace 
this  Greek  inquirer  stepping  up  to  these  colossi  of  an 
incalculable  antiquity,  with  the  free  and  bold  mind  of  a 
modern  savant  exploring  an  Egyptian  tomb  or  some 
prehistoric  barrow,  combined  it  may  be  with  no  small 
measure  of  the  ignorant  and  contemptuous  wonder  of 
the  ruder  conqueror.  In  Herodotus  we  see  a  bright 
and  varied  picture  of  the  whole  of  the  primitive  types 
of  civilisation,  and  the  first  stirrings  of  fiery  aspiration 
in  the  genius  of  movement  as  it  gazed  into  the  motion- 
less features  of  the  genius  of  permanence  embodied  in 
the  Sphinx  of  the  Nile  valley. 

It  was  the  fashion  once  to  disparage  the  good  faith  of 
Herodotus,  and  to  ridicule  his  childlike  credulity,  his 


92  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

garrulous  inconsequence,  and  his  gratuitous  guessing  on 
matters  both  spiritual  and  physical.  But  there  is  now 
a  reaction  of  opinion.  And  if  Herodotus  is  not  an 
exact  observer  nor  a  scientific  reasoned,  there  is  a  dis- 
position to  admit  more  of  foundation  for  some  of  his 
travellers'  tales  than  was  at  first  supposed.  Nay,  recent 
explorations  and  excavations  both  in  Africa  and  in  Asia 
have  confirmed  some  of  his  most  suspicious  reports  ; 
and,  at  any  rate,  we  may  follow  those  who  think  that 
he  was  doing  his  best  with  the  sources  of  information 
before  him.  And  it  is  clear  that  the  earliest  inquiries  of 
all,  in  a  field  so  vast  and  comprehensive,  could  only  be 
made  in  a  manner  thus  unsystematic  and  casual.  Where 
scientific  verification  is  not  possible,  it  is  well  to  have  a 
variety  of  working  hypotheses.  Hearsay  evidence,  in- 
deed, is  anything  but  good  evidence.  But,  where  strict 
evidence  is  not  to  be  had,  it  is  useful,  in  great  and 
decisive  events,  to  collect  all  the  hearsay  evidence  that 
is  forthcoming  at  all.  And  this  is  what  Herodotus  did. 
He  is  no  great  philosopher  in  things  social  or  in  things 
physical.  But  he  had  that  which  the  whole  Eastern 
world  and  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians  could  not 
produce,  which  the  wealth  of  Persia  could  not  buy,  nor 
the  priests  of  Babylon  discover.  He  had  that  observant, 
inquisitive,  critical  eye  that  ultimately  developed  into 
Greek  philosophy  and  science — the  eye  that  let  slip 
nothing  in  Nature  or  in  Man — the  mind  that  never 
rested  till  it  had  found  some  working  hypothesis  to 
account  for  every  new  and  striking  phenomenon.  It  is 
the  first  dawn  of  the  modern  spirit. 

This  most  delightful  of  all  story-books  is  abundantly 
.  open  to  the  English  reader.  There  are  several  transla- 
[  tions,  and  for  some  purposes  Herodotus,  whose  style  is 
I  one  of  artless  conversation,  may  be  read  in  English 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  93 

almost  as  well  as  in  the  Greek.  In  the  elaborate  work 
of  Canon  Rawlinson  we  have  a  good  translation,  with 
abundant  historical  and  antiquarian  illustrations  by  the 
Canon  and  by  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  with  maps,  plans, 
and  many  drawings.  Herodotus  preserves  to  us  the 
earliest  consecutive  account  that  the  West  has  recorded 
of  the  ancient  empires  of  the  East.  And,  although  his 
record  is  both  casual  and  vague,  it  serves  as  a  basis 
round  which  the  researches  of  recent  Orientalists  may 
be  conveniently  grouped,  just  as  Blackstone  and  Coke 
form  the  text  of  so  many  manuals  of  law,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  both  are  so  largely  obsolete.  To  use  Herodotus 
with  profit  we  need  such  a  systematic  Manual  of  Ancient 
History  as  that  of  Heeren.  This  book,  originally  pub- 
lished in  1 799,  and  continued  and  corrected  by  the  author 
down  to  the  year  1828,  although  now  in  many  respects 
rendered  obsolete  by  subsequent  discoveries,  remains  an 
admirable  model  of  the  historical  summary.  Unfortu- 
nately it  requires  so  many  corrections  and  additions  that 
it  can  hardly  be  taken  as  the  current  text-book,  all  the 
more  that  the  English  translation  itself,  published  in  1829 
at  Oxford,  is  not  very  easily  procured.  For  all  practi- 
cal purposes,  the  book  is  now  superseded  by  Canon 
Rawlinson's  Manual  of  Ancient  History,  Oxford,  1878^ 
which  follows  the  plan  of  Heeren,  covers  nearly  the 
same  period,  and  treats  of  the  same  nations.  It  is,  in 
fact,  the  Manual  of  Heeren  corrected,  rewritten,  supple- 
mented, and  brought  up  to  that  date,  somewhat  over- 
burdened with  the  masses  of  detail,  wanting  in  the 
masterly  conciseness  of  the  great  Professor  of  Gottingen, 
but  embodying  the  learning  and  discoveries  of  three 
later  generations. 

But  Egyptology  and  Assyriology  are  unstable  quick- 
sands in  which  every  few  years  the  authorities  become 


94  THE  MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

obsolete  by  the  discovery  of  fresh  records  and  relics. 
Professor  Sayce,  the  principal  exponent  of  the  untrust- 
worthiness  of  Herodotus,  assures  us  that  Canon  Rawlin- 
son  and  his  coadjutors  have  now  become  obsolete 
themselves,  and  that  the  history  of  the  plains  of  the 
Nile  and  the  Euphrates  must  again  be  rewritten.  But 
the  tendency  to-day  is,  perhaps,  inclined  to  treat  the 
discoveries  on  which  Professor  Sayce  relies  as  neither  so 
certain  nor  so  important  as  he  was  once  disposed  to 
think.  For  the  general  reader  it  may  be  enough  to  rely 
on  Max  Duncker's  History  of  Antiquity  (6  vols.,  trans- 
lated 1878  ;  see  vols.  i.  and  ii.  for  Egypt  and  Assyria). 

There  is  another  mode,  besides  that  of  books,  whereby 
much  of  the  general  character  of  Oriental  civilisation 
may  be  learned.  That  is,  by  pictures,  illustrations, 
models,  monuments,  and  the  varied  collections  to  be 
found  in  our  own  Museum,  in  the  Louvre  at  Paris,  and 
other  collections  of  Oriental  antiquities.  Thousands  of 
holiday-makers  saunter  through  these  galleries,  and 
gaze  at  the  figures  in  a  vacant  stare.  But  this  is  not  to 
learn  at  all.  The  monuments  and  cases,  wall-paintings 
and  relics,  require  patient  and  careful  study  with  appro- 
priate books.  The  excellent  handbooks  of  our  Museum 
will  make  a  good  beginning,  but  the  monuments  of 
Egypt  and  Assyria  are  hardly  intelligible  without  com- 
plete illustrated  explanation.  These  are,  for  Egypt,  the 
dissertations,  notes,  and  woodcuts  by  various  Egyptolo- 
gists in  Canon  Rawlinson's  English  Herodotus ;  in  Sir 
Gardner  Wilkinson's  great  work  on  the  Manners  and 
Customs  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians,  1837  ;  and  his  Hand- 
book for  Egypt,  1858. 

The  facts,  dates,  persons,  and  incidents  of  Egyptian 
history  are  still  the  problems  of  recondite  archaeology. 
The  spirit  of  Egyptian  civilisation  may  be  grasped, 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  95 

without  any  copious  reading,  by  any  one  who  will 
seriously  study  instead  of  stare  at  the  great  Egyptian 
collections.  Much  may  be  learned,  though  in  far  less 
degree,  by  those  who  will  study  the  Asiatic  antiquities 
with  such  works  as  Layard's  Nineveh,  Fergusson's 
History  of  Architecture,  Canon  Rawlinson's  Five  Great 
Monarchies,  and  the  dissertations  in  his  English  Hero- 
dotus, And  much  may  be  learned  from  Professor 
Sayce's  A  ncient  Empires  of  tJie  East,  and  from  the  recent 
series  of  the  Story  of  the  Nations.  These  are  unequal 
in  execution,  arTd  "avowedly  popular  and  elementary  in 
design  :  but  they  are  plain,  cheap,  accessible  to  all,  and 
contain  the  most  recent  general  views.  Brugsch's  great 
History  of  Egypt,  translated  1879-1881,  is  rather  a  book 
for  the  special  student  of  history  than  for  the  general 
reader. 

It  is  not  every  reader  who  has  leisure  to  master  such 
a  book  as  Rawlinson's  English  Herodotus.  But  some- 
thing of  this  fountain  of  history  all  may  know.  Even 
in  such  a  pleasant  boy's  book  as  Mr.  Church's  Stories 
from  the  East  and  Stories  from  Herodotus  we  get  some 
flavour  of  the  fine  old  Greek  traveller.  There  are  three 
great  sections  of  Herodotus  which  are  of  special  interest : 

1.  the  history  of  the  foundation  of  Cyrus'  kingdom  ; 

2.  the  books  on  the  history,  antiquities,  and  customs  of 
Egypt ;  3.  the  immortal  story  of  Marathon,  Thermopylae, 
and  Salamis.     Literature  contains  no  more  enthralling 
page  than  the  tale  by  the  father  of  prose  how  the  first 
great  duel  between  the  East  and  the  West  ended  in  the 
most   momentous    victory    recorded    in    the    annals    of 
mankind.     Every  educated  man  should  know  by  heart 
the  wonderful  story :   how  the  virtue  of  Aristides,  the 
daring  of  Miltiades,  the  heroism  of  Leonidas,  and  the 
genius  of  Themistocles  saved  the  infant  civilisation  of 


96  THE    MEANING    OF    HISTORY 

Western  Europe  from  the  fate  which  overtook  the  far 
more  cultivated  races  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor.  A 
distinguished  Indian  Mussulman,  himself  of  the  race  of 
the  Prophet,  is  wont  to  bewail  the  defeat  of  Xerxes  as 
the  greatest  disaster  in  history.  But  for  that,  he  says, 
the  vanguard  of  civilisation  would  have  advanced  on 
Asiatic,  and  not  on  European,  lines  ;  on  Theocratic 
instead  of  Democratic  principles.  The  theology  of  the 
learned  Syed  may  be  impeached  ;  but  his  history  is 
sound. 

One  other  Greek  book  of  history  all  should  know, 
perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  histories,  that  of  the  Athenian 
Thucydides.  Now  Thucydides  was  in  pre-eminent  degree 
what  Herodotus  was  not — a  strictly  scientific  historian  ; 
one  whose  conception  of  the  canons  of  historic  precision 
has  never  been  surpassed,  against  whom  hardly  a  single 
error  of  fact,  hardly  a  single  mistaken  judgment,  has 
ever  been  brought  home.  Thucydides  is  much  more 
than  a  great  historian  ;  or,  rather,  he  was  what  every 
great  historian  ought  to  be — he  was  a  profound  philo- 
sopher. His  history  of  the  Peloponneslan  Wa'f  is  like  a 
portrait  by  Titian  :  the  whole  mind  and  character,  the 
inner  spirit  and  ideals,  the  very  tricks  and  foibles,  of  the 
man  or  the  age  come  before  us  in  living  reality.  No 
more  memorable,  truthful,  and  profound  portrait  exists 
than  that  wherein  Thucydides  has  painted  the  Athens 
of  the  age  of  Pericles. 

Athens  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  and  under  the  guidance 
of  Peficles, L  readied  one  of  "those  supreme  moments  in 
the  varying  course  of  civilisation  which,  like  the  best 
dramas  of  Shakespeare  or  the  Madonnas  of  Raphael, 
are  incomparable  creations  of  the  human  faculties  stand- 
ing apart  for  ever.  With^all  its  vices,  follies,  and  little- 
ness,  nothing  like  it  had  ever  been  seen  before,  nothing 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  97 

like  it  can  ever  be  seen  again.  It  embodied  originality, 
simplicity^  beauty,  audacity,  and  grace,  with  a  fulness 
and  harmony  which  the  weary  world,  the  heir  of  all  the 
ages,  can  never  recall  And  m~Thucydides  it  found 
the  philosopher  who  penetrated  to  its  inmost  soul,  and 
the  artist  who  could  paint  it  with  living  touch.  How 
memorable  are  those  monumental  phrases  which  he 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  favourite  hero  or  claims  for 
his  own  work  !  '  My  history,'  he  says,  '  is  an  everlasting 
possession,  not  a  prize  composition  which  is  heard  and 
forgotten.'  '  We  men  of  Athens  know  how  to  cultivate 
the  mind  without  losing  our  manhood,  and  to  create 
beauty  without  extravagant  costliness.'  '  We  count  the 
man  who  cares  nothing  for  the  public  weal  as  a  worth- 
less nuisance,  and  not  simply  an  inoffensive  nonentity.' 
'  All  citizens  take  their  share  of  the  public  burdens  :  all 
arc  Tree  to  offer  their  opinion  in  the  public  concerns.' 
'  We  have  no  cast-iron  system  :  every  man  with  us  is 
free  to  live  his  own  life.'  '  Life  is  harmonised  by  our 
civic  festivals  and  our  personal  refinement.'  '  The  whole 
earth  is  the  funeral  monument  of  those  who  live  a  noble 
life :  their  epitaph  is  graven,  not  on  stone,  but  on  the 
hearts  of  men.' 

Thucydides,  alas  !  is  not  like  Herodotus,  easy  to  read 
and  simple  in  his  thought  and  language.  His  only,  and 
very  moderate,  volume  (a  _single  copy  of  the  Times 
newspaper  contains  as  many  words)  is  very  close  read-  i  *  fj 
ing :  crammed  with  profound  thought,  epigrammatic, 
intricate,  obscure,  and  most  peculiar  in  the  turn  of  con- 
glomerate phrase.  But  in  the  masterly  translation  of 
Dr.  Jowett,  and  with  the  paraphrase  and  illustrations  in 
the  corresponding  part  of  Grote's  History  of  Greece,  he 
may  be  read  without  difficulty  ~"6y~  every "senous'reader. 
All  at  least  should  know  his  resplendent  picture  of 

G 


98  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

I  Pericles,  and  the  Periclean  ideal  of  Athens,  an  ideal  as 
usual  only  reached  by  a  few  exalted  spirits,  and  by  them, 
but  for  a  moment  of  glowing  inspiration — an  ideal  of 
which  we  have  the  grotesque  obverse  in  the  wild  comedies 
of  Aristophanes.  All  too  should  know  the  story  of 
Cleon  and  of  Alcibiades,  the  terrible  scene  of  the  plague 
at  Athens,  and  the  ghastly  insurrection  at  Corcyra,  and 
perhaps  the  most  stirring  of  all,  the  overthrow  of  Athens 
in  the  port  of  Syracuse.  I  can  remember  how,  when  I 
f  read  that  within  sight  of  the  heights  of  Epipolae  and  the 
fountain  of  Arethusa,  it  seemed  as  if  the  bay  around  me 
still  rang  with  the  shout  of  triumph  and  the  wail  of  the 
defeated  host  It  is  surely  the  most  dramatic  page,  yet 
one  of  the  simplest  and  most  severely  impartial  and 
exact,  in  the  whole  range  of  historical  literature. 

For  the  remainder  of  Greek  history  after  the  defeat 
and  decline  of  Athens  we  have  no  contemporary  authori- 
ties of  any  value,  except  the  Memoirs  of  Xenophon  ;  and 
for  the  marvellous  career  of  Alexander,  the  best  is  Arrian, 
who  at  least  had  access  to  the  works  of  eye-witnesses. 
And  thus  when  we  lose  the  light  of  Thucydides  and 
Xenophon,  we  must  trust  to  Plutarch  and  the  later  com- 
pilers, who  had  materials  that  are  lost  to  the  modern  world. 
Between  ThucycTides  and  Xenophon  the  analogy  is 
strange,  and  the  contrast  even  more  strange.  Both  were 
Athenians,  saturated  with  Attic  culture,  both  exiles,  both 
unsparing  critics  of  the  democracy  of  their  native  republic ; 
but  the  first  stood  resolute  in  his  proud  philosophic  neu- 
trality, whilst  cherishing  the  ideal  of  the  country  he  had 
lost ;  the  other  became  a  renegade  in  the  Greek  fashion, 
the  citizen  of  his  country's  natural  enemy,  and  alienated 
from  his  own  by  temperament,  in  sympathy,  and  in  habits. 
When  these  Athenian  philosophers  fail  us,  we  had 
better  rely  on  Curtius  and  Grote.  Both  have  their 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  99 

great  and  special  merits.  And  if  the  twelve  volumes  of 
Grote  are  beyond  the  range  of  the  ordinary  reader  with 
their  mountains  of  detail  and  microscopic  exaggeration 
of  minute  incidents  and  insignificant  beings,  Curtius  in 
less  than  a  third  of  the  bulk  has  covered  nearly  the 
same  ground  with  a  more  philosophic  conception. 
Strictly  speaking,  there  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  a  history 
of  Greece.*  Greece  is  scattered  broadcast  over  South- 
eastern Europe  and  North-western  Asia.  Greece  was 
not  so  much  a  nation  as  a  race,  a  movement,  a  language, 
a  school  of  thought  and  art.  And  thus  it  comes  that 
any  history  of  Greece  is  utterly  inadequate  without  such 
books  as  Miiller's  or  Mahaffy's  Literature  of  Ancient 
Greece,  Winckelmann's  History  of  Ancient  Art,  Fustel 
de~~Coulanges'  Cite  Antiqtie,  and  Mahaffy's  Social  Life 
in  Greece  and  Greek  Life  and  ThougJit,  or  John  Adding- 
torrSymonds'  delightful  essays  on  Greek  Poets  and  the 
scenery  of  Greece. 

The  twelve  volumes  of  Grote's  History  of  Greece  are 
neither  manageable  nor  necessary  for  any  but  regular 
scholars  of  the  original  authorities.  But  there  are  sec- 
tions of  his  work  of  peculiar  value  and  well  within  the 
scope  of  the  general  reader.  These  are  :  the  account  of 
the  Athenian  democracy  (vol.  iv.  ch.  31) ;  of  the  Athe- 
nian empire  (vol.  v.  ch.  45) ;  the  famous  chapters  on 
Socrates  and  the  Sophists  (vol.  viii.  ch.  67,  68),  and  the 
account  of  Alexander's  expedition  (vol.  xii).  For  the 
general  description  of  Greece,  Curtius  is  unrivalled,  and 
in  many  things  he  is  a  valuable  corrective  of  Grote's 
pedantic  radicalism.  But  it  is  a  serious  drawback  to 
Curtius  as  a  historian  that  with  his  purist  Hellenic 
sympathies  he  treats  the  history  of  Greece  as  closed  by 
Philip  of  Macedon,  whereas  in  one  sense  it  may  be  said 
that  the  history  of  a  nation  then  only  begins.  The 


100  TFIK   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

histories  of  Greece  too  often  end  with  the  death  of 
Demosthenes,  or  the  death  of  Alexander,  though  Free- 
man and  Mahaffy  have  shown  that  neither  the  intellect 
nor  the  energy  of  the  Greek  race  was  at  all  exhausted. 
The  German  work  of  Holm,  pronounced  by  Mahaffy  to 
be  amongst  the  very  best,  will  soon  be  open  to  the 
English  reader. 

The  historians  of  Rome,  with  two  exceptions,  are  too 
diffuse,  or  too  fragmentary :  such  mere  epitomes  or  such 
uncritical  compilations,  that  they  have  no  such  value  for 
the  general  reader  as  the  great  historians  of  Greece. 
Yet  there  are  few  more  memorable  pages  in  history  than 
are  some  of  the  best  bits  from  the  delightful  story-teller 
Livy.  We  cannot  trust  his  authority ;  he  has  no  pre- 
tence to  critical  judgment  or  the  philosophic  mind.  He 
is  no  painter  of  character ;  nor  does  he  ever  hold  us 
spellbound  with  a  profound  thought,  or  a  monumental 
phrase.  But  his  splendid  vivacity  and  pictorial  colour, 
the  epic  fulness  and  continuity  of  his  vast  composition, 
thtTglowing  patriotism  and  martial  enthusiasm  of  his 
majestic  theme,  impress  the  imagination  with  peculiar 
force!  It  is  a  prose  JEneld — the  epic  of  the  Roman 
commonwealth  from  ./Eneas  to  Augustus.  It  is  inspired 
with  all  the  patriotic  fire  of  Virgil  and  with  more  than 
Horatian  delight  in  the  simple  virtues  of  the  olden  time. 
For  the  first  time  a  great  writer  devoted  a  long  life  to 
record  the  continuous  growth  of  his  nation  over  a  period 
of  eight  centuries,  in  order  to  do  honour  to  his  country's 
career  and  to  teach  lessons  of  heroism  to  a  feebler 
generation.  Had  we  the  whole  of  this  stupendous  work, 
we  should  perhaps  more  fully  respect  the  originality  as 
well  as  the  grandeur  of  this  truly  Roman  conception. 

One  of  the  abiding  sorrows  of  literature  is  the  loss  of 
the  107  books,  out  of  the  142  which  composed  the 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  IOI 

entire  series.  They  were  complete  down  to  the  seventh 
century  :  now  we  have  to  be  content  with  the  '  epitomes/ 
or  general  table  of  contents.  But  35  books,  a  little 
short  of  one  quarter  of  the  whole,  have  reached  us.  In 
these  times  of  special  research  and  critical  purism,  the 
merits  of  Livy  are  forgotten  in  the  mass  of  his  glaring 
defects.  Uncritical  he  is,  uninquiring  even,  nay,  almost 
ostentatiously  indifferent  to  exact  fact  or  chronological 
reality.  He  seems  deliberately  to  choose  the  most 
picturesque  form  of  each  narrative  without  any  regard 
to  its  truth  ;  nay,  he  is  too  idle  to  consult  the  authentic 
records  within  reach.  But  we  are  carried  away  by  the 
enthusiasm  and  stately  eloquence  of  his  famous  Preface  : 
we  forgive  him  the  mythical  account  of  the  foundation 
of  Rome  for  the  beauty  and  heroic  simplicity  of  the 
primitive  legends,  and  the  immortal  pictures  of  the 
early  heroes,  kings,  chiefs,  and  dictators.  Where  the 
facts  of  history  are  impossible  to  discover,  it  is  some- 
thing to  have  epic  tales  which  have  moved  all  later 
ages.  And  we  may  more  surely  trust  his  narrative  of 
the  Punic  wars,  which  is  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
episodes  in  the  roll  of  the  Muse  of  History. 

She  is  still  weeping  bitter  and  silent  tears  for  a  loss 
even  greater  from  the  side  of  scientific  record  of  the 
past.  The  Romanised  Greek,  Polybius,  a  thinker  and 
patriot  worthy  of  an  older  time,  the  "wise  and  cultured 
friend  of  the  second  Scipio,  wrote  the  history  of  Rome 
in  forty  books,  for  the  seventy-four  years  of  her  history 
from  the  origin  of  the  second  Punic  war  to  the  end  of 
thef'third  and  the  final  overthrow  of  Carthage.  It  was 
the  crisis  in  the  fortunes  of  Rome,  one  of  the  most 
crucial  turning-points  in  the  history  of  the  world.  And 
it  found  a  historian,  who  was  statesman,  philosopher, 
and  man  of  learning,  curiously  well  placed  to  collect 


102  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

trustworthy  materials,  and  peculiarly  endowed  for  just 
and  independent  judgment.  In  all  the  qualities  of  a 
historian  but  one,  no  other  Greek  but  Thucydides  can 
be  placed  beside  him.  But  five  of  his  forty  books 
remain  entire.  His  dry  and  prosaic  method  has  cost 
him  immortality  ancl  robbed  us  of  all  but  a  small 
remnant  of  this  most  precious  record.  Of  all  great 
historians  he  is  the  one  most  wanting  in  fire  and  in 
grace.  If  we  would  contrast  the  work  of  a  mighty 
master  of  narrative  with  that  of  a  scrupulous  annalist, 
we  may  read  the  famous  scene  in  the  Carthaginian 
senate,  when  the  second  Punic  war  is  declared  to  the 
ambassadors  of  Rome,  as  it  is  told  by  Polybius,  and 
then  turn  to  the  same  story  in  the  stirring  pages  of  Livy. 
It  is  the  fashion  now  to  neglect  Plutarch  ;  to  our 
fathers  of  the  last  three  centuries  he  was  almost  the 
mainstay  of  historical  knowledge.  His  Greek  is  poor  ; 
his  manner  gossipy ;  his  method  uncritical ;  and  his 
credulity  unlimited.  But  he  belongs  himself  to  the 
ancient  world  that  he  describes.  He  is  an  ancient 
describing  the  look  of  the  ancient  heroes  to  us  moderns. 
He  was  a  moralist,  not  a  historian,  a  painter  of  char- 
acters rather  than  a  narrator  of  events.  But  with  all 
this,  Plutarch's  forty-six  Parallel  Lives  have  a  special 
value  oT  their  own.  We  must  loolc  on  them  as  the 
spontaneous  moralising  of  a  fine  old  polytheistic 
preacher,  recounting  with  enthusiasm  the  deeds  of  the 
famous  chiefs  of  Greece  and  Rome  ;  full  of  superstitious 
tales,  traditional  anecdotes,  loose  hearsay — by  no  means 
exact  and  critical  history.  The  classical  enthusiasm 
of  the  eighteenth  century  was  nursed  upon  Plutarch's 
Lives.  In  his  simple  pages  the  genius  of  the  ancient 
world  stands  out  in  living  realMy!  One  who  knew  his 
Plutarch  would  understand  the  genius  of  Greece  and 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  103 

Rome    better    than    if    he    knew    a   hundred    German 
monographs. 

It  is  one  of  the  cruel  bereavements  of  Humanity  that 
of  his  Lives  no  less  than  fourteen  are  lost ;  those  of  the 
foremost  types  of  the  ancient  world.  We  have  lost 
that  of  Epaminondas,  the  noblest  of  the  Greeks,  and  of 
Scipio,  the~no51est  of  the  old  patrician  chiefs.  We  have 
lost  the  life  of  Julius,  and  of  all  the  earlier  emperors  ; 
and,  perhaps  worst  of  all,  we  have  lost  the  life  of  Trajan, 
the  greatest  of  the  emperors :  the  emperor  wriom 
Plutarch "knew  in  life,  and  of  whose  majestic  life  and 
empire  we  have  the  scantiest  record  of  all.  It  is  a 
melancholy  and  interesting  coincidence  that  Trajan,  one 
of  the  grandest  figures  of  the  ancient  world,  to  whom 
Plutarch  dedicated  one  of  his  works,  is  almost  unknown 
to  us,  though  he  may  have  been  himself  familiar  with 
the  Parallel  Lives.  History  has  strangely  neglected  to 
record  the  acts  of  one  of  the  noblest  of  all  rulers  and 
the  events  of  one  of  the  most  typical  of  all  ages — 
mainly,  it  would  seem,  because  his  genius  had  given  to 
his  age  such  peace,  well-being,  and  unbroken  security. 

Although  so  large  a  part  of  Roman  history  is  known 
to  us  only  through  Greek  writers,  Rome  produced  at 
least  one  historian  who  may  be  set  beside  Thucydides 
himself.  Tacitus  was  a  philosopher,  who,  if  inferior  to 
Thucydides  in  calm  judgment  and  insight  into  the 
compound  forces  of  an  entire  age,  was  even  greater  than 
Thucydides  as  a  master  of  expression  and  in  his  insight 
into  the  complex  involutions  of  the  human  heart.  The 
literature  of  history  has  nothing  to  compare  with  his 
gallery  of  portraits,  with  his  penetration  into  character, 
his  tragic  bursts  of  indignation,  his  judicial  sarcasms, 
and  his  noble  elevation  of  soul.  As  a  painter  of 
character  in  a  few  memorable  words,  Thomas  Carlyle 


104  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

alone  amongst  historians  comes  near  him.  But  Tacitus 
is  vastly  superior  in  monumental  brevity,  in  reticence, 
in  simplicity,  and  in  dignity.  There  arc  pa^es  of 
Tacitus,  where  we  must  go  to  Shakespeare  himself,  to 
Moliere,  Cervantes,  Swift,  or  one  of  the  great  masters 
of  character,  to  find  the  like  of  these  dramatic  strokes 
and  living  portraiture. 

Tacitus,  it  is  true,  presents  us  in  his  Histories  and 
Annals  with  the  inner,  that  is,  the  Roman  side  of  the 
empire  alone.  And  we  must  correct  his  view  with  that 
of  the  provinces — Gaul,  Spain,  Britain,  as  seen  by  the 
larger  and  wider  world  of  the  West  which  was  absorbing 
Rome  in  ways  little  intelligible  to  the  proud  Roman 
himself.  And  Tacitus'  strange  parody  of  the  history  of 
the  Jews  may  serve  to  remind  us  how  apt  is  the  wisest 
believer  in  his  own  type  of  civilisation  to  be  blind  to 
the  new  moral  forces  which  are  gathering  up  to  destroy 
it.  Of  Tacitus  we  now  have  an  excellent  English 
version  (Church  and  Brodribb,  3  vols.,  1868-1877);  and 
all  solid  readers  who  care  for  great  historical  pictures 
may  know  the  trenchant  judgment  on  the  empire 
under  Augustus  and  Tiberius,  the  noble  portraits  of 
Germanicus  and  of  Agricola,  and  above  all  his  masterly 
account  of  the  German  races,  our  sole  documentary 
record  of  the  first  stages  in  the  civilisation  of  our 
Teutonic  ancestors. 

It  is  of  course  necessary  to  have  some  continuous 
summary  of  the  history  of  Greece  and  Rome.  We 
have  already  spoken  of  the  general  manuals  of  Heeren 
and  of  Rawlinson.  For  Greece,  those  who  find  Bishop 
Thirlwall's  scholarly  and  sensible  work  too  long,  may  con- 
tent themselves  with  the  summary  of  Dr.  Smith  or  Sir 
G.  W.  Cox.  For  Rome  we  have  the  admirable  manual 
of  Dean  Merivale  (General  History  of  Rome,  1875) 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  IO5 

which  condenses  the  history  of  1200  years  in  600  pages. 
For  the  career  of  Julius  Caesar  and  the  foundation  of  the 
dictatorship  which  became  the  Roman  empire,  all 
should  read  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  chapters  of 

__^^ .•.^•^^^•••••••^ 

Mommsen's  History  of  Rome,  in  the  fourth  volume  of 
the'English  translation. 

For  the  ancient  world  we  have  several  well-known 
and  familiar  works,  which  take  us  into  the  heart  of  its 
political,  military,  and  intellectual  life : — Xenophon's 
Memoir  of  Socrates,  Arrian's  Persian  Expedition  of 
Alexander,  compiled  in  imperial  times  from  original 
sources,  Caesar's  Commentaries,  and  Cicero's  Letters  to 
his  Friends.  Xenophon,  the  fastidious  and  ambitious 
soldief  who  forsook  Athens  for  Sparta,  has  given  us  the 
most  faithful  picture  of  Socrates,  which  is  a  revelation 
of  the  intellectual  aspect  of  '  the  eye  of  Greece '  in  the 
great  age.  Arrian  compiled  from  the  memoirs  of  eye- 
witnesses a  truthful  and  complete  picture  of  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  episodes  in  the  history  of  mankind — 
the  conquest  of  the  East  by  the  King  of  Macedon. 
Caesar  was  almost  as  great  in  letters  as  he  was  in  war. 
His  account  of  the  Conquest  of  Gaul,  one  of  the 'great 
pivots  of  general  history,  was  famous  from  its  first 
appearance  for  the  exquisite  purity  of  its  language,  its 
masterly  precision  of  truthfulness,  its  noble  simplicity 
ancTheroic  brevity.  It  has  served  all  after  ages  as  the 
first  Latin  text-book,  and  describes  for  us  one  of  the 
most  memorable  episodes  in  history,  recounted  ty  its 
principal  actor,  himself  the  greatest  name  in  the  history 
of  mankind.  We  need  not  be  admirers  of  Cicero  as 
a  man,  nor  partial  to  his  type  of  eloquence,  to  enjoy 
the  graceful  gossip  of  his  familiar  correspondence,  with 
its  wonderful  picture  of  the  modern  side  of  Roman 
civilisation. 


106  THE    MEANING   OF    HISTORY 

No  rational  understanding  of  history  is  possible 
without  attention  to  geography  and  a  distinct  hold  on 
the  local  scene  of  the  great  events.  Nor  again  can  we 
to  any  advantage  follow  the  political,  without  a  know- 
ledge of  the  aesthetic  and  practical  life  of  any  ancient 
people.  For  the  geography  we  need  Sprinter's  Atlas, 
or  Freeman's  Historical  Geography,  Wordsworth's  or 
Mahaffy's  'l  ravels  in  Greece,  the  first  chapter  of  Curtius' 
History  of  Greece.  Dr.  Smith's  Dictionaries  of  A  n liquifies 
and  of  Biography,  \.  S.  Murray's  History  of  Sculpture, 
or  Liibke's  History  of  Art,  M  i<ldlet<  -n's  Rome,  Dyer's 
Pompeii,  and  our  museums  may  serve  for  art. 

It  is  no  personal  paradox,  but  the  judgment  of  all 
competent  men,  that  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  Gibbon  is 
the  most  perfect  historical  composition  that  exists  in 
any  language  :  at  once  scrupulously  faithful  in  its  facts  ; 
consummate  in  its  literary  art  ;  and  comprehensive  in 
analysis  of  the  forces  affecting  society  over  a  very  long 
and  crowded  epoch.  In  eight  moderate  volumes,  of 
which  every  sentence  is  compacted  of  learning  and 
brimful  of  thought,  and  yet  every  page  is  as  fascinat- 
ing as  romance,  this  great  historian  has  condensed  the 
history  of  the  civilised  world  over  the  vast  period  of 
fourteen  centuries — linking  the  ancient  world  to  the 
modern,  the  Eastern  world  to  the  Western,  and  marshal- 
ling in  one  magnificent  panorama  the  contrasts,  the 
relations,  and  the  analogies  of  all.  If  Gibbon  has  not 
the  monumental  simplicity  of  Thucydides,  or  the  pro- 
found insight  of  Tacitus,  he  has  performed  a  feat  which 
neither  has  attempted.  '  Survey  mankind,'  says  our 
poet,  '  from  China  to  Peru  ! '  And  our  historian  surveys 
mankind  from  Britain  to  Tartary,  from  the  Sahara  to 
Siberia,  and  weaves  for  one-third  of  all  recorded  time 
the  epic  of  the  human  race. 


SOME  GREAT  BOOKS  OF  HISTORY       IO/ 

Half  the  hours  we  waste  over  desultory  memoirs  of 
very  minor  personages  and  long-drawn  biographies  of 
mere  mutes  on  the  mighty  stage  of  our  world,  would 
enable  us  all  to  know  our  Decline  and  Fall,  the  most 
masterly  survey  of  an  immense  epoch  ever  elaborated 
by  the  brain  of  man.  There  is  an  old  saying  that  over 
the  portal  of  Plato's  Academy  it  was  written,  'Let  no  one 
enter  here,  till  he  is  master  of  geometry.'  So  we  might 
imagine  the  ideal  School  of  History  to  have  graven  on 
its  gates,  '  Let  nope  enter  here,  till  he  has  mastered 
Gibbon.'  Those  who  find  his  eight  crowded  volumes 
beyond  their  compass  might  at  least  know  his  famous 
first  three  chapters,  the  survey  of  the  Roman  empire  down 
to  the  age  of  the  Antonines  ;  his  seventeenth  chapter  on 
Constantine  and  the  establishment  of  Christianity  ;  the 
reign  of  Theodosius  (ch.  32-34) ;  the  conversion  of  the 
Barbarians  (ch.  37)  ;  the  kingdom  of  Theodoric  (ch.  39)  ; 
the  reign  of  Justinian  (ch.  40,  41,  42);  with  the  two 
famous  chapters  on  Roman  Law  (ch.  43,  44).  If  we  add 
others,  we  may  take  the  career  of  Charlemagne  (ch.  49)  ; 
of  Mahomet  (ch.  50,  51);  the  Crusades  (ch.  58,  59, 
which  are  not  equal  to  the  first-mentioned)  ;  the  rise  of 
the  Turks  (ch.  64,  65)  ;  the  last  siege  of  Constantinople 
(ch.  68) ;  and  the  last  chapters  on  the  city  of  Rome 
(69,70,71). 

Gibbon  takes  us  into  mediaeval  history,  but  he  is  by  no 
means  sufficient  as  a  guide  in  it.  The  mediaeval  period  is 
certainly  difficult  to  arrange.  In  the  first  place,  it  has  a 
double  aspect — Feudalism  and  Catholicism — the  organi- 
sation of  the  Fief  and  Kingdom,  and  the  organisation  of 
the  Church.  In  the  next  place,  these  two  great  types 
of  social  organisation  are  extended  over  Europe  from 
the  Clyde  to  the  Morea  of  Greece,  embracing  thousands 
of  baronies,  duchies,  and  kingdoms,  each  with  a  common 


108  THE    MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

feudal  and  a  common  ecclesiastical  system,  but  with  dis- 
tinct local  unity  and  an  independent  national  and  pro- 
vincial history.  The  facts  of  mediaeval  history  are  thus 
infinite  and  inextricably  entangled  with  each  other  ;  the 
details  are  often  obscure  and  usually  unimportant,  whilst 
the  common  character  is  striking  and  singularly  uniform. 

The  true  plan  is  to  go  to  the  fountain-head,  and,  at 
whatever  trouble,  read  the  best  typical  book  of  the  age 
at  first  hand — if  not  in  the  original,  in  some  adequate 
translation.  I  select  a  few  of  the  most  important : — 
Eginhardt's  Life  of  Charles  the  Great ;  The  Saxon 
Chronicle ;  Asser's  Life  of  Alfred,  which  is  at  least 
drawn  from  contemporary  sources ;  William  of  Tyre's 
and  Robert  the  Monk's  Chronicle  of  the  Crusades ; 
Geoffrey  Vinsauf ;  Joinville's  Life  of  St.  Louis  ;  Suger's 
Life  of  Louis  the  Fat ;  St.  Bernard's  Life  and  Sermons 
(see  J.  C.  Morison's  Life) ;  Froissart's  Chronicle ;  De 
Commines'  Memoirs ;  and  we  may  add  as  a  picture  of 
manners,  The  Paston  Letters. 

But  with  this  we  must  have  some  general  and  con- 
tinuous history.  And  in  the  multiplicity  of  facts,  the 
variety  of  countries,  and  the  multitude  of  books,  the 
only  possible  course  for  the  general  reader  who  is  not 
a  professed  student  of  history  is  to  hold  on  to  the 
books  which  give  us  a  general  survey  on  a  large  scale. 
Limiting  my  remarks,  as  I  purposely  do,  to  the  familiar 
books  in  the  English  language  to  be  found  in  every 
library,  I  keep  to  the  household  works  that  are  always 
at  hand.  It  is  only  these  which  give  us  a  view  suffi- 
ciently general  for  our  purpose.  The  recent  books  are 
sectional  and  special :  full  of  research  into  particular 
epochs  and  separate  movements.  It  is  true  that  the 
older  books  have  been  to  no  small  extent  superseded, 
or  at  least  corrected  by  later  historical  researches. 


SOME  GREAT  BOOKS  OF  HISTORY       109 

They  no  longer  exactly  represent  the  actual  state  of 
historical  learning.  They  need  not  a  little  to  supple- 
ment them,  and  something  to  correct  them.  Yet  their 
place  has  not  been  by  any  means  adequately  filled.  At 
any  rate  they  are  real  and  permanent  literature.  They 
fill  the  imagination  and  strike  root  into  the  memory. 
They  form  the  mind  ;  they  become  indelibly  imprinted 
on  our  conceptions.  They  live :  whilst  erudite  and 
tedious  researches  too  often  confuse  and  disgust  the 
general  reader.  To  the  '  historian,'  perhaps,  it  matters 
as  little  in  what  form  a  book  is  written,  as  it  matters  in 
what  leather  it  is  bound.  Not  so  to  the  general  reader. 
To  teach  him  at  all,  one  must  fill  his  mind  with  impres- 
sive ideas.  And  this  can  only  be  done  by  true  literary 
art.  For  these  reasons  I  make  bold  to  claim  a  still 
active  attention  for  the  old  familiar  books  which  are  too 
often  treated  as  obsolete  to-day. 

There  are  four  books  on  mediaeval  history  from 
which  the  last  generation  learned  much  ;  though  we 
can  hardly  count  any  of  them  amongst  the  great  books 
of  history.  Hallam's  Middle  Ages  is  now  seventy-five 
years  old  ;  Guizot's  Lectures  on  Civilisation  in  Europe 
is  sixty-five  years  old  ;  Michelet's  early  History  of 
France  is  sixty  years  old ;  and  Dean  Milman's  Latin 
Christianity  is  forty  years  old.  They  are  all  books 
that  cannot  be  neglected :  even  though  it  is  true  that 
modern  research  has  proved  them  to  have  not  a  few 
shortcomings  and  some  positive  errors.  Yet  withal,  I 
know  no  books  in  familiar  use,  from  which  the  general 
English  reader  can  learn  so  much  of  the  nature  of  the 
Middle  Ages  as  in  these. 

Guizot's  Lectures  on  Civilisation,  in  spite  of  its  sixty- 
five  years,  in  spite  of  the  recent  additions  to  all  that  we 
know  of  the  origin  of  the  feudal  world,  of  mediaeval  law 


I  10  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

and  custom,  of  mediaeval  sovereignty,  still  remains  the 
most  valuable  short  conspectus  of  the  mediaeval  system 
which  the  general  reader  has.  His  essay  was  the 
earliest  attempt  to  explain  by  real  historical  research 
the  great  services  to  civilisation  of  the  feudal  monarchy 
and  the  Catholic  Church,  which  Chateaubriand,  Walter 
Scott,  de  Maistre,  and  Manzoni  had  already  embodied 
in  romantic  episodes  or  in  trenchant  controversy.  It  is 
of  prime  importance  for  the  historian  to  be  conversant 
with  the  affairs  of  state,  or  at  least  to  pass  his  life 
amidst  politicians  and  practical  chiefs.  This  is  the 
strength  of  Thucydides,  Xenophon,  Polybius,  Caesar, 
Livy,  Tacitus,  de  Commines,  and  we  may  almost  add 
Hume  and  Gibbon.  But  amongst  modern  historians 
there  is  no  more  conspicuous  example  of  this  than 
Guizot,  a  large  part  of  whose  life  was  passed  in  office 
and  in  the  Chamber.  He  writes  of  Charlemagne,  St. 
Louis,  and  Philip  the  Fair,  like  a  man  who  has  had 
charge  of  the  destinies  of  a  great  nation.  A  work  of 
real  historical  insight  may  be  supplemented  or  corrected 
by  later  research.  But  no  industry  in  the  examination 
of  documents  will  ever  make  a  useful  compilation  into 
a  great  book  of  history. 

Hallam's  Middle  Ages  first  appeared  in  1818,  and 
with  Guizot's  Lectures  on  Civilisation  in  Europe,  ten 
years  later,  created  an  epoch  in  historical  study.  But 
Hallam  continued  to  labour  on  his  first  work  for  thirty 
years  and  more  of  his  long  life  ;  and  the  complete  shape 
of  the  Middle  Ages  dates  from  1848.  Since  then  much 
has  been  added  to  our  knowledge,  especially  as  to  the 
organisation  of  feudal  relations,  both  in  town  and 
country,  in  the  history  of  the  English  constitution, 
and  the  land-system  at  home  and  abroad.  But  no 
book  has  filled  the  whole  space  occupied  by  Hallam 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  III 

with  his  breadth  of  view  and  patient  comparative 
method.  At  present,  perhaps,  the  most  valuable  por- 
tions of  his  work  are  the  first  four  chapters  on  France, 
Italy,  and  Spain,  and  the  concluding  chapter  on  the 
state  of  society,  much  of  which,  it  is  true,  may  now  be 
corrected  by  later  research.  The  account  of  Germany 
is  much  better  read  in  Mr.  Bryce's  Holy  Roman  Empire, 
that  of  the  church  in  Dean  Milman,  and  that  of  the 
English  constitution  in  Bishop  Stubbs.  One  of  the 
main  wants  of  historical  literature  now  is  a  book  on  the 
Middle  Ages  which  should  cover  the  whole  of  Europe, 
in  its  intellectual,  its  spiritual,  and  its  political  side, 
with  all  the  knowledge  that  we  have  gained  from  the 
researches  of  the  last  fifty  years.  Unhappily,  it  seems 
as  if  history  were  condemned  to  the  rigid  limits  of 
special  periods,  as  if  the  philosophic  grasp  were  pro- 
nounced to  be  obsolete  by  indefatigable  research. 

Michelet's  History  of  France  down  to  Francis  I., 
although  it  is  a  collection  of  brilliant  pensees,  caracteres, 
and  aper^us  rather  than  a  continuous  history,  is  a  fine 
and  stirring  work  of  special  value  to  the  English  reader. 
It  is  now  sixty  years  old;  but  a  century  will  not  destroy 
its  living  inspiration.  Hallam,  the  very  antithesis  of 
Michelet,  one  who  was  never  once  betrayed  into  an 
epigram  or  fired  into  poetry,  has  acknowledged  in  fit 
language  the  beauty  and  vigour  of  his  French  competitor. 
There  are  magnificent  chapters  on  the  eleventh,  twelfth, 
thirteenth,  and  fourteenth  centuries ;  and  his  picture  of 
physical  France,  his  story  of  Charles  the  Great,  of 
Louis  the  Fat,  Philip  Augustus,  St.  Louis,  Philip  the 
Fair,  of  the  Crusades,  the  Albigenses,  the  Communes, 
his  chapters  on  Gothic  architecture,  on  the  English 
wars,  and  especially  on  Jeanne  Dare,  are  unsurpassed 
in  the  pages  of  modern  historical  literature.  Michelet 


112  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

has  some  of  the  moral  passion  and  insight  into 
character  of  Tacitus,  no  little  of  the  picturesque  colour 
of  Carlyle,  and  more  than  the  patriotic  glow  of  Livy. 
Alas !  had  he  only  something  of  the  patient  reserve  of 
Thucydides,  the  simplicity  and  precision  of  Csesar,  the 
learning  and  harmonious  completeness  of  Gibbon  !  He 
is  a  poet,  a  moralist,  a  preacher,  rather  than  a  historian  in 
the  modern  sense  of  the  word.  Yet  with  all  his  short- 
comings (and  his  later  work  has  but  flashes  of  his  old 
force),  Michelet's  picture  of  mediaeval  France  will  long 
remain  an  indispensable  book. 

Dean  Milman's  Latin  Christianity,  which  appeared 
forty  years  ago,  just  misses,  it  may  be,  being  one  of 
'  the  great  books  of  history ' — but  will  long  hold  its  own 
as  an  almost  necessary  complement  to  Gibbon's  Decline 
and  Fall.  It  was  avowedly  designed  as  its  counterpart, 
its  rival,  and  in  one  sense  its  antidote.  And  we  cannot 
deny  that  this  aim  has  been,  to  a  great  extent,  attained. 
It  covers  almost  exactly  the  same  epoch  ;  it  tells  the 
same  story  ;  its  chief  characters  are  the  same  as  in  the 
work  of  Gibbon.  But  they  are  all  viewed  from  another 
point  of  view  and  are  judged  by  a  different  standard. 
Although  the  period  is  the  same,  the  personages  the 
same,  and  even  the  incidents  are  usually  common  to 
both  histories,  the  subject  is  different,  and  the  plot  of 
the  drama  is  abruptly  contrasted.  Gibbon  recounts 
the  dissolution  of  a  vast  system  :  Milman  recounts  the 
development  of  another  vast  system :  first  the  victim, 
then  the  rival,  and  ultimately  the  successor  of  the  first. 
Gibbon  tells  us  of  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman 
empire :  Milman  narrates  the  rise  and  constitution  of 
the  Catholic  Church — the  religious  and  ecclesiastical, 
the  moral  and  intellectual  movements  which  sprang 
into  full  maturity  as  the  political  empire  of  Rome  passed 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  113 

through  its  long  transformation  of  a  thousand  years. 
The  scheme  and  ground-plan  of  Milman  are  almost 
perfect.  Had  he  the  prodigious  learning,  the  super- 
human accuracy  of  Gibbon,  that  infallible  good  sense, 
that  perennial  humour,  that  sense  of  artistic  proportion, 
the  Dean  might  have  rivalled  the  portly  ex-captain  of 
yeomanry,  the  erudite  recluse  in  his  Swiss  retreat.  He 
may  not  be  quite  strong  enough  for  his  giant's  task.  But 
no  one  else  has  even  essayed  to  bend  the  bow  which  the 
Ulysses  of  Lausanne  hung  up  on  one  memorable  night 
in  June  1787  in  his  garden  study;  none  has  attempted 
to  recount  the  marvellous  tale  of  the  consolidation  of  the 
Christianity  of  Rome  over  the  whole  face  of  Western 
Europe  during  a  clear  period  of  a  thousand  years. 

The  whole  of  the  closely-packed  six  volumes  of  Latin 
Christianity  are  possibly  beyond  the  limits  of  many 
general  readers.  But  we  can  point  to  those  parts 
which  may  be  best  selected  from  the  rest.  The  Intro- 
duction in  the  first  book,  and  the  General  Survey  which 
forms  the  fourteenth  book  at  the  end  of  the  work,  are 
the  parts  of  the  whole  of  the  widest  general  grasp.  To 
these  we  may  add  the  chapters  which  treat  of  the 
greater  Popes :  Leo  the  Great  in  Book  ii.,  Gregory  the 
Great  in  Book  iii.,  Hildebrand  in  Book  vii.,  Innocent 
the  third  in  Book  ix.,  Boniface  VIII.  in  Book  xi. — the 
chapters  on  Theodoric,  Charlemagne,  the  Othos,  the 
Crusades,  St.  Bernard,  St.  Louis — those  on  the  four 
Latin  Fathers,  Ambrose,  Jerome,  Augustine,  and 
Gregory,  the  monastic  orders  of  St.  Benedict,  St. 
Dominic,  and  St.  Francis — the  Conversion  of  the 
Barbarians,  and  the  Reformers  and  Councils  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  As  is  natural  and  fortunate,  the 
Dean  is  strongest  and  most  valuable  just  where  Gibbon 
is  weakest  or  even  misleading. 

H 


I  14  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

In  his  Library,  Auguste  Comte  recommended  as  the 
complement  of  Gibbon,  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of 
the  Abb6  Fleury.  But  it  seems  in  vain  to  press  upon 
the  general  reader  of  English  a  work  in  French  so 
bulky,  so  unfamiliar,  and  so  far  removed  from  us  in 
England  to-day  both  in  date,  in  form,  and  in  tone.  It 
was  published  in  1690,  more  than  two  hundred  years 
ago,  and  is  in  twenty  volumes  quarto,  and  only  in  part 
translated  into  English.  It  contains  an  excellent 
narrative,  which  was  warmly  praised  by  Voltaire.  But 
it  is  entirely  uncritical ;  it  is  of  course  not  on  the  level 
of  modern  scholarship ;  and  as  the  work  of  a  prelate 
under  the  later  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  it  is  naturally  com- 
posed from  the  theological  and  miraculous  point  of 
view.  The  Abb6  gives  us  the  view  of  the  Catholic 
world  as  seen  by  a  sensible  and  liberal  Catholic  divine 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  Dean  has  painted  it 
as  imagined  by  a  somewhat  sceptical  and  Protestant 
man  of  the  world  in  the  nineteenth. 

When  we  pass  from  Mediaeval  to  Modern  History,  we 
are  confronted  with  the  difficulty  that  modern  history 
is  infinitely  the  more  intricate  and  varied,  and  that,  as 
we  advance,  the  histories  become  continually  more  and 
more  devoted  to  special  epochs  and  countries,  and  are 
minute  researches  into  local  incidents  and  chosen 
persons.  The  immediate  matter  in  hand  in  this  essay 
is  to  direct  attention  to  great  books  of  history,  meaning 
thereby  those  works  which  take  us  to  the  inner  life 
of  one  of  the  great  typical  movements,  or  which  in 
manageable  form  survey  some  of  the  great  epochs  of 
general  history.  Such  surveys  for  the  last  four  centuries 
are  exceedingly  rare.  There  are  many  valuable  standard 
works,  which  are  supposed  to  be  in  every  gentleman's 
library,  and  which  are  familiar  enough  to  every  his- 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  115 

torical  student.  But  they  form  a  list  that  can  hardly 
be  compressed  into  one  hundred  volumes,  and  to  master 
them  is  beyond  the  power  of  the  average  general  reader 
to  whom  these  pages  are  addressed.  We  can  mention 
some  of  them  :  though  they  are  hardly  '  great  books,' 
and  neither  in  range  of  subject,  in  charm,  or  in  insight, 
have  they  the  stamp  of  Herodotus  or  Gibbon. 

I  am  accustomed  to  recommend  as  a  general  summary 
the  Outline  of  Modern  History  by  Jules  Michelet.  It 
is  unsurpassed  in  clearness  and  general  arrangement. 
It  begins  with  the  taking  of  Constantinople  by  the 
Turks  in  1453,  and  has  been  well  translated  and  con- 
tinued to  our  own  day  by  Mrs.  W.  Simpson.  I  am 
also  old-fashioned  enough  to  rely  on  the  Manual  of  a 
great  historian— Heeren's  Political  System  of  Europe 
which  covers  almost  exactly  the  same  ground — though 
it  is  now  more  than  eighty  years  old,  not  easily  pro- 
curable in  the  English  form,  and  avowedly  restricted  to 
the  political  relations  of  the  European  States.  But  its 
concise  and  masterly  grouping,  its  good  sense  and  just 
proportion,  make  it  the  model  of  a  summary  of  a  long 
and  intricate  period.  But  we  must  not  ask  more  from 
it  than  it  professes  to  give  us.  We  shall  look  from  it 
in  vain  for  any  account  of  the  revolution  directed  by 
Cromwell  or  of  the  culture  that  gave  splendour  to  the 
early  years  of  Louis  XIV. 

Summaries  and  manuals  are  of  course  made  for 
students  and  it  would  be  vain  to  expect  the  general 
reader,  who  is  not  about  to  be  '  extended '  on  the  '  mark- 
system,'  and  who,  tired  with  work,  takes  up  a  volume  at 
his  fireside,  to  commit  to  memory  the  dates  and  sub- 
divisions which  are  the  triumph  of  the  examiner  and 
the  despair  of  the  practical  man.  Records  and  summaries 
there  must  be,  if  only  for  reference  and  general  clearness 


Il6  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

of  heads.  We  must  to  some  extent  group  our  periods  ; 
and,  without  pretending  to  very  minute  details,  the 
following  may  serve  for  practical  purposes,  and  are 
those  which  are  commonly  adopted  : — 

1.  The  formation  of  the  European  monarchies  and 

the  rise  of  the  modern  State- System. 

2.  The   revival   of   learning    and    the   intellectual 

movement  known  as  the  Renascence.  This  is 
synchronous  with,  and  related  to,  the  first 
mentioned. 

3.  The  Reformation   and  the  great  religious  wars 

down  to  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

4.  The  dynastic,  territorial,  and  colonial  struggles 

from  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  to  the  close  of 
the  Seven  Years'  War. 

5.  The  struggle  against  autocracy  in  (a)  Holland 

in  the  sixteenth  century ;  (b}  England  in  the 
seventeenth  century  ;  (c)  America  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  This  is  a  special  phase  of  the 
general  movements  noted  as  3  and  4. 

6.  The  Revolution  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 

its  political,  social,  and  industrial  effects. 

We  will  take  each  of  these  six  movements  in  their 
order : — 

I.  For  the  first  we  have  a  book  of  established  fame, 
now  well  entered  on  its  second  century,  which  still  lives 
by  virtue  of  its  high  powers  of  generalisation,  its  pellucid 
style^jand  sureness  of  judgment — Robertson's  Charles  V. 
In  spite  of  the  development  of  research  in  the  last  one 
hundred  and  thirty  years,  the  famous  Introduction  or 
Survey  of  Europe  from  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire  to 
the  fifteenth  century  remains  an  indispensable  book,  the 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  117 

appendix  as  it  were,  and  philosophic  completion  of  The 
Decline  and  Fall. 

The  volume  on  the  Middle  Ages  is  indeed  one  of 
those  permanent  and  synthetic  works  which  have  been 
almost  driven  out  of  modern  libraries  by  the  growth  of 
special  studies,  but  it  belongs  to  that  order  of  general 
histories  of  which  we  are  now  so  greatly  in  need.  For 
the  consolidation  of  States  in  Italy  we  must  resort  to 
Sismondi's  Italian  Republics,  of  which  there  is  a  small 
English  abridgment ;  for  that  of  France  to  Michelet ; 
for  Spain  to  Prescott's  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  ;  and  for 
England  to  Hallam's  Constitutional  History  of  'England '; 
this,  though  fifty  years  have  much  impaired  its  value, 
still  holds  the  field  by  its  judicial  balance  of  mind. 
For  later  authorities  we  must  turn  to  the  general 
Histories  of  England  of  J.  R.  Green  and  of  Dr.  F.  Bright. 
But  we  can  point  to  no  work  save  that  of  Robertson 
which  in  one  general  view  will  give  us  the  history  of 
Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

II.  For  the  Renascence  of  Learning  and  Art,  we  have 
no  better  exponents  than  Burckhardt,  Michelet,  and 
Symonds.  The  German  is  full  of  learning  and  sound 
judgment ;  the  Frenchman  has  a  single  volume  of 
wonderful  brilliancy  and  passion ;  the  Englishman  has 
produced  a  long  series  of  works  charged  with  learning 
and  almost  overloaded  with  ingenious  criticism  and 
superabundant  illustration.  But  the  Renascence  is  best 
studied  in  the  biographies  of  its  leaders,  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici,  Columbus,  Bruno,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Michael 
Angelo,  Rabelais,  Erasmus,  Ariosto,  and  Calderon — in 
the  great  paintings,  buildings,  inventions,  and  poems — 
in  such  books  as  those  of  Cellini,  More,  Montaigne, 
and  Cervantes.  A  movement  so  subtle,  so  diffused,  so 


IlS  THE   MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

complex  can  have  no  history.  But  its  spirit  has  been 
caught  and  embalmed  by  Michelet  in  some  hundred 
pages  of  almost  continuous  epigram  and  poetry.  A 
sort  of  catalogue  raisonnee  presenting  its  versatile  and 
ingenious  force  may  be  best  collected  from  a  study  of 
Hallam's  great  work — The  Literature  of  Europe  in  the 
fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries. 

III.  For  the  Reformation  we  rely  on  Ranke's  History 
of  tJie  Popes,  especially  for  Germany.     For  England  the 
history  has  been  adequately  told  both  by  Green  and 
by   Froude ;  for    Holland   by   Motley ;  for  France   by 
Michelet.     It  is  here  of  course  that  the  most  violent 
partisanship  comes  in  to  disturb  the  tranquil  judgment- 
seat  of  history.     History  becomes  controversy  rather 
than  record.     The  Catholic  will  consult  the  splendid 
polemical  invective  of  Bossuet — The  variations  of  Pro- 
testantism.    The  Protestant  will  rely  on  the  vehement 
impeachment  of  Merle  D'Aubigne". 

IV.  The  dynastic,  territorial,  and  colonial  struggles 
from  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  to  the  close  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War  have  been  well  summarised  by  Heeren  in 
his  Political  System,  by  Michelet  in  his  summary  of 
Modern   History,   and   by  Duruy  in   his   Histoire  des 
Temps  Modernes.     There  is  rto  book  which  can  be  said 
to  enter  into  literature  and  gives  an  adequate  picture  of 
this  period,  unless  it  be  Voltaire's  Age  of  Louis  XIV.  and 
Louis  XV.     Lord  Stanhope's  Histories  of  Queen  Anne 
and    of  England,   Carlyle's   Frederick    the    Great,   H. 
Martin's  Histoire  de  France,  Lecky's  excellent  History 
of  England  in   the  Eighteenth  Century,  are  standard 
works  for  this  period  ;    but  they  are  all  far  too  volu- 
minous, too  special,  and  diffuse  for  the  purposes  of  the 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  119 

general  reader,  nor  do  they  enter  into  the  scheme  of  the 
present  essay. 

V.  Nor  again  is  it  possible  to  put  into  the  hands  of 
the  general  reader  of  English  any  single  work  which 
will  give  an  adequate  conception  of  the  successive 
struggles  for  freedom  in  Holland,  England,  and  America. 
They  must  be  read  in  the  separate  histories,  of  which 
there  are  some  that  are  excellent,  though  all  of  a 
formidable  length  and  bulk.  The  nine  volumes  which 
Motley  devoted  in  his  three  works  on  the  struggle  in 
Holland,  the  three  works  of  Guizot  on  the  English 
Revolution  and  its  leaders,  the  standard  work  of 
Bancroft  on  the  United  States,  form  a  series  beyond 
the  resources  of  the  mere  general  reader  as  distinct 
from  the  student. 

There  are,  however,  three  works  which,  whilst  being 
in  form  and  in  bulk  within  the  compass  of  the  average 
reader,  give  adequate  portraits  of  the  three  noble  chiefs 
of  the  Dutch,  the  English,  and  the  American  revolutions. 
Motley's  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  Carlyle's  Letters 
and  Speeches  of  Cromwell,  and  Washington  Irving's 
Life  of  Washington,  are  all  indispensable  books  to  one 
who  desires  to  know  the  work  of  three  of  the  great 
heroes  of  the  Protestant  republics.  And  these  three 
are  peculiarly  suited  for  the  biographical  method.  For 
not  only  were  they  each  the  undoubted  chiefs  of  great 
historic  movements,  but  they  were  all  three  men  of 
singularly  pure  and  magnanimous  life,  who  each  em- 
bodied the  highest  type  of  the  age  which  they  inspired. 

Carlyle's  Cromwell  has  definitely  formed  the  view 
that  Englishmen  take  of  their  own  history  and  even 
their  view  of  their  political  system.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  splendid  monuments  of  historical  genius,  for  it 


120  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

reversed  the  false  judgment  which,  for  two  centuries, 
political  and  religious  bigotry  had  passed  on  the  greatest 
ruler  that  these  islands  ever  knew,  and  formally  enthroned 
him  on  the  love  and  admiration  of  all  thinking  men.  It 
is  needful  to  bear  in  mind  that  this  great  work  is  not  a 
Life  of  Cromwell ;  it  was  not  so  designed  ;  it  is  not  so 
in  result.  It  is  the  materials  annotated  for  a  biography 
of  Cromwell  which  Carlyle  never  wrote,  and  which  is 
yet  to  be  written.  And  it  is  essential  to  have  alongside 
of  this  masterpiece  of  industry  and  genius,  a  continuous 
history  of  the  whole  period  from  the  accession  of 
Charles  I.  to  that  of  William  III.  With  all  its  defects, 
we  shall  find  that  told  in  the  two  works  of  Guizot — 
The  History  of  the  English  Revolution  and  the  Life  of 
Cromwell — as  they  appear  in  two  volumes  in  the  English 
version.  From  the  enormous  detail  of  Mr.  Gardiner's 
works  on  the  period,  and  their  still  incomplete  state,  the 
general  reader  will  be  content  to  trust  to  the  fine 
narrative  as  we  read  it  in  Green's  Short  History.  If 
we  hesitate  to  add  to  his  Cromwell  Mr.  Carlyle's 
Friedrich  the  Second,  it  is  on  account  of  its  pre- 
posterous length,  its  interminable  digressions,  its  trivial 
personalities  and  tedious  scandal ;  because,  with  all  its 
amazing  literary  brilliancy,  it  entirely  omits  to  give  us 
any  conception  of  Frederick  as  a  creative  civil  statesman, 
— though  this  is  the  character  in  which  after  ages  will 
principally  honour  him. 

VI.  For  the  Revolution  of  1789  we  have  the  wonderful 
book  of  Carlyle,  perhaps  the  most  striking  extant 
example  of  the  poetical  method  applied  to  history. 
It  is  an  enduring  book  ;  and  it  has  now  passed  into 
its  sixth  decade  and  that  immortality  which,  by  copy- 
right law,  enables  the  public  to  buy  it  for  a  shilling. 


SOME  GREAT  BOOKS  OF  HISTORY       121 

The  poetical  and  pictorial  method  too  often  ends  in 
caricature  and  gives  tempting  occasions  for  telling 
portraiture.  And  both  in  his  loves  and  his  hates, 
Carlyle  has  too  often  proved  to  be  extravagant  or 
unjust,  and  sometimes  flatly  mistaken  in  his  facts. 
With  all  its  shortcomings  it  is  a  great  book :  which,  in 
literary  skill,  has  not  been  surpassed  by  any  prose  of 
our  century,  and  which,  as  historical  judgment,  has 
deeply  modified  the  social  and  political  ideas  of  our 
age.  But  as  for  the  Cromwell  we  need  a  complement, 
if  not  a  corrective,  so  we  need  it  far  more  for  the  French 
Revolution.  We  may  find  it  in  Von  Sybel's  or  in 
Michelet's  French  Revolution,  or,  better  still,  in  the 
clear,  judicial,  and  just  summary  of  Mignet.  For  the 
history  of  the  Great  War,  we  may  turn  to  the  abridged 
edition  of  Sir  Archibald  Alison's  in  a  single  volume,  as 
fairly  adequate  and  satisfactory.  This  avoids  nearly  all 
his*  besetting  faults,  and  contains  a  very  fair  share  of 
his  undoubted  merits.  A  far  superior  book,  which  takes 
in  the  whole  period  from  1792  to  1848,  is  the  History  of 
Modern  Europe  by  the  late  C.  A.  Fyffe,  too  early  lost 
to  historical  literature. 

For  the  growth  of  our  social  and  industrial  life  in  the 
present  century — a  subject  of  cardinal  importance  which 
must  practically  determine  our  political  sympathies — it 
is  too  obvious  that  no  adequate  general  account  exists. 
Perhaps  in  the  whole  range  of  historical  literature  no 
book  is  more  urgently  needed  than  a  real  history  of 
the  development  of  industry  and  social  existence  in 
Europe  in  the  present  century.  The  movement  itself  is 
European  rather  than  national  and  social  and  economic 
rather  than  political.  In  the  meantime  we  have  no 
other  resource  except  to  follow  up  this  complex  evolu- 
tion of  modern  society,  both  locally  and  sectionally. 


122  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

Of  the  various  extant  histories,  the  most  important  is 
Harriet  Martineau's  History  of  England  from  the  Peace 
of  1815  ;  perhaps  the  most  generally  interesting  is 
Charles  Knight's  Popular  History  of  England,  the  later 
portions  of  which  are  less  superficial  and  elementary 
than  the  earlier.  The  modern  English  histories  of 
Spencer  Walpole,  Justin  M'Carthy,  and  W.  N.  Moles- 
worth,  are  fair,  honest,  and  pleasant  to  read. 

In  these  few  notes  on  great  books  of  history,  it  does 
not  lie  in  my  plan  to  say  much  about  national  or  special 
histories.  From  my  own  point  of  view  the  life  of 
Humanity  in  its  fulness  is  the  central  aim  of  sound 
knowledge ;  and  that  which  substitutes  the  national  for 
the  human  interest,  that  which  withdraws  the  attention 
from  organic  civilisation  to  special  incidents,  has  been 
long  too  closely  followed.  There  is  always  a  tendency 
to  concentrate  the  interest  on  national  history ;  and  it 
needs  no  further  stimulus.  Nor  are  the  details  of  our 
national  history  ever  likely  to  pall  on  the  intelligent 
reader.  But  histories  on  such  a  scale,  that  each  octavo 
volume  records  but  a  year  or  two,  and  takes  nearly  as 
long  to  compose :  on  such  a  canvas,  that  every  person 
who  crosses  the  stage  and  each  incident  that  occurs 
within  the  focus  of  the  instrument,  is  recorded,  not  in 
the  degree  of  its  importance,  but  in  the  degree  of  the 
bulk  that  the  accessible  materials  may  fill — whatever 
may  be  their  value,  are  beyond  the  purport  of  this 
chapter. 

The  only  aim  of  the  present  piece  is  to  suggest  to  a 
busy  man  a  few  books  in  which  he  may  catch  some 
conception  of  the  central  lines  of  human  evolution.  A 
true  philosophy  of  human  progress  (if  we  could  find  it) 
would  be  a  practical  manual  of  life  and  conduct :  and 
of  such  a  philosophy,  history  in  the  larger  sense  must 


SOME   GREAT   BOOKS   OF   HISTORY  123 

be  the  bible  and  basis.  Mark,  learn,  and  inwardly 
digest  it,  not  as  historical  romance  to  pass  a  few  idle 
hours,  but  as  the  revelation  of  the  slow  and  interrupted, 
but  unceasing  development  of  the  organism  of  which 
we  are  cells  and  germs.  What  we  need  to  know  are 
the  leading  lines  of  this  mighty  biography,  the  moral 
and  social  links  that  bind  us  to  the  series  of  our 
ancestors  in  the  Past.  The  great  truth  which  marks 
the  science  of  our  time  is  the  sense  of  unity  in  the 
course  of  civilisation,  and  of  organic  evolution  in  its 
gradual  growth.  To  gain  a  conception  of  this  course 
we  must  set  ourselves  in  a  manly  way  to  study,  not  the 
picture  books  of  history,  but  the  classical  works  as  they 
came  from  the  master  hands  of  the  great  historians. 
Wherever  it  is  possible  we  must  go  to  the  original 
sources,  being  sure  that  no  story  is  ever  so  faithful  as 
that  told  by  those  who  themselves  saw  the  great  deed 
and  heard  the  voices  of  the  great  men. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  HISTORY  SCHOOLS 
An  Oxford  Dialogue^ 

ON  one  of  those  bright  misty  days  at  Oxford,  when  the 
grey  towers  are  dimly  seen  rising  from  masses  of  amber 
and  russet  foliage,  when  reading  men  enjoy  a  brisk  walk 
in  the  keen  afternoon  air,  to  talk  over  the  feats  of  the 
Long  and  the  chances  of  the  coming  Schools,  a  tutor 
and  a  freshman  were  striding  round  the  meadows  of 
Christ  Church.  The  Reverend  yEthelbald  Wessex, 
called  by  undergraduates  'the  Venerable  Bede,'  was 
taking  a  tutorial  grind  with  his  young  friend,  Philibert 
Raleigh,  who  had  come  up  from  Eton  with  a  brilliant 
record.  The  Admirable  Crichton,  as  Phil  was  named 
by  his  admirers,  was  expected  to  do  great  things  in  the 
History  School :  his  essay  had  won  him  the  scholar- 
ship, and  even  the  Master  admitted  that  he  had  read 
some  which  were  worse.  Phil  was  enlarging  on  the 
lectures  of  the  new  Regius  Professor. 

'We  are  in  luck,'  said  he,  'to  be  reading  for  the 
Schools  at  a  time  when  the  Professor  is  one  of  the  first 
of  living  writers ;  his  lectures  are  a  lesson  in  English 
literature,  instead  of  a  medley  of  learned  "tips."' 

'  I  hope,  my  dear  boy,'  said  the  Venerable,  '  that  you 
are  not  referring  to  the  late  Professor  in  that  rather 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  vol.  liv.  N.S.     October  1893. 


THE   HISTORY   SCHOOLS  125 

superficial  remark  of  yours,  for  he  was  certainly  one  of 
the  most  consummate  historians  of  modern  times.' 

'  Oh,  no,'  said  Phil,  in  an  apologetic  tone  ;  '  I  never 
heard  Dr.  Freeman  lecture  at  all,  and  I  have  not  yet 
finished  the  third  volume  of  The  Norman  Conquest. 
But  surely  he  is  hardly  in  it  as  a  writer  with  Froude, 
whose  history  one  enjoys  to  read  as  one  enjoys  Quentin 
Durward  or  Ivanhoe  ? ' 

'  You  are  giving  yourself  away,  dear  boy,'  replied  the 
tutor,  with  his  shrewd  smile, '  when  you  class  the  History 
of  England  with  a  novel.  Mr.  Froude's  enemies  (and  I 
am  certainly  not  one  of  them)  have  never  said  worse  of 
him  than  that.  I  am  afraid  that  the  first  thing  which 
Oxford  will  have  to  teach  you  is  that  the  business  of  a 
historian  is  to  write  history,  not  romance.' 

'  Of  course/  said  the  freshman,  a  little  put  out  by  the 
snub,  '  I  should  not  compare  the  History  of  England  to 
romance,  nor,  I  suppose,  do  you.  But  we  know  that 
all  the  histories  in  the  world  which  have  permanent  life 
are  composed  with  literary  genius,  and  are  delightful  to 
read  in  themselves.  A  great  historian  has  to  write 
history,  but  he  also  has  to  write  a  great  book.' 

'  Literature  is  one  thing,'  said  the  Venerable,  in  some- 
what oracular  tones, '  and  history  is  another  thing.  The 
reXo<?  of  history  is  Truth.  She  may  be  more  attractive 
to  some  minds  when  clothed  in  shining  robes ;  but  the 
historian  has  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of  nuda  Veritas, 
and  it  is  no  business  of  his  to  care  for  the  drapery  she 
wears.  What  I  mean  is,  that  history  implies  indefatig- 
able research  into  recorded  facts.  That  is  the  essence  : 
the  form  is  mere  accident.' 

'The  form  of  the  sentences  may  be  a  secondary 
thing,'  pleaded  the  Crichton,  'but,  surely,  the  vivid 
power  of  striking  home  which  marks  every  great  book 


126  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

is  essential  to  a  history  intended  to  survive.  Would  the 
Master  have  given  all  that  labour  to  Thucydides  if  the 
whole  of  his  work  had  been  occupied  with  monotonous 
accounts  of  how  the  Spartans  marched  into  Attica,  and 
how  the  Athenians  sent  seven  ships  to  the  coast  of 
Thrace  ?  Thucydides  is  a  KTrj/^a  et<?  aei  because  of  the 
elaborate  speeches,  the  account  of  the  plague,  the  civil 
war  in  Corcyra,  the  siege  of  Syracuse,  and  the  last  sea- 
fight  in  the  harbour.  These  are  the  things  which  make 
Thucydides  immortal,  and  remind  one  of  the  messenger's 
speech  in  the  Persce.  It  is  these  magnificent  pictures  of 
the  ancient  world  which  help  us  to  get  over  the  weari- 
some parade  of  hoplites  and  sling-men,  and  battles  of 
frogs  and  mice  in  obscure  bays.' 

'This  will  never  do,'  replied  the  tutor.  'We  shall 
quite  despair  of  your  class,  if  you  begin  by  calling 
"wearisome"  any  fact  ascertainable  in  recorded  docu- 
ments. The  business  of  the  historian  is  to  examine  the 
evidence  for  what  has  ever  happened  in  any  place  or 
time  ;  and  nothing  which  is  true  can  be  wearisome  to  the 
really  historical  mind.' 

'  And  are  we  expected  to  enjoy  our  Codex  Diplomaticus 
as  much  as  our  Macaulay  and  our  Froude?' 

'  We  do  not  ask  you  to  enjoy,'  said  the  Bede,  in  his 
dry  way,  'we  only  ask  you  to  know — or,  to  be  quite 
accurate,  to  satisfy  the  examiners.  The  brilliant  apolo- 
gist of  Henry  VIII.  seems  to  give  you  delightful  lectures  ; 
but  I  can  assure  you  that  the  Schools  know  no  other 
standard  but  that  of  accurate  research,  in  the  manner 
so  solidly  established  by  the  late  Regius  Professor  whom 
we  have  lost.' 

'  Do  you  think  that  a  thoughtful  essay  on  the  typical 
movements  in  one's  period  would  not  pay?'  asked  the 
Admirable  one,  in  a  rather  anxious  tone. 


THE   HISTORY   SCHOOLS  1 27 

'  My  young  friend,'  said  the  Reverend  Ethelbald,  '  you 
will  find  that  dates,  authorities,  texts,  facts,  and  plenty 
of  diphthongs  pay  much  better.  You  are  in  danger  of 
mortal  heresy,  if  you  think  that  anything  will  show  you 
a  royal  road  to  these.  If  there  is  one  thing  which,  more 
than  another,  is  the  mark  of  Oxford  to-day,  it  is  belief 
in  contemporary  documents,  exact  testing  of  authorities, 
scrupulous  verification  of  citations,  minute  attention  to 
chronology,  geography,  palaeography,  and  inscriptions. 
When  all  these  are  right,  you  cannot  go  wrong.  For 
all  this  we  owe  our  gratitude  to  the  great  historian  we 
have  lost.' 

'  O  yes/  said  Phil  airily,  for  he  was  quite  aware  that  he 
was  thought  to  be  shaky  in  his  pre-Ecgberht  chronicles  ; 
'  I  am  not  saying  a  word  against  accuracy.  But  all  facts 
are  not  equally  important,  nor  are  all  old  documents  of 
the  same  use.  I  have  been  grinding  all  this  term  at  the 
History  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  verifying  all  the  citations 
as  I  go  along,  and  making  maps  of  every  place  that  is 
named.  I  have  only  got  to  the  third  volume,  you  know, 
and  I  don't  know  now  what  it  all  comes  to.  Freeman's 
West-Saxon  scuffles  on  the  downs  seem  to  me  duller 
than  Thucydides'  fifty  hoplites  and  three  hundred  sling- 
men,  and  I  have  not  yet  come  to  anything  to  compare 
with  the  Syracusan  expedition.' 

'  This  is  a  bad  beginning  for  a  history  man,'  said  Basda. 
'  Is  this  how  they  talked  at  Eton  of  the  greatest  period 
of  the  greatest  race  in  the  annals  of  the  world  ?  All 
history  centres  round  the  early  records  of  the  English  in 
the  three  or  four  centuries  before  the  first  coming  of  the 
Jutes,  and  the  three  or  four  after  it.  Let  me  advise  you 
to  take  as  your  period,  say,  the  battle  of  Ellandun,  and 
get  up  all  about  it,  and  how  "  its  stream  was  choked 
with  slain,"  and  what  led  up  to  it  and  what  came  after 


128  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

it.  Do  you  know  anything  more  interesting,  as  you 
call  it,  than  that?' 

'  Yes,'  said  Phil  readily,  with  all  the  recklessness  of  a 
smart  freshman ;  'why,  Ellandun  was  merely  the  slogging 
of  savages,  of  whom  we  know  nothing  but  a  few  names. 
What  I  call  fine  history  is  Macaulay's  famous  account 
of  the  state  of  England  under  the  Stuarts,  or  Froude's 
splendid  picture  of  the  trial  and  execution  of  Mary  of 
Scots.  That  is  a  piece  of  writing  that  no  one  can  ever 
forget' 

'  Ah,  just  so  !'  said  the  Venerable,  in  that  awful  mono- 
syllabic way  which  he  had  caught  from  the  Master ; 
'splendid  picture! — piece  of  writing! — fine  history! — here 
we  generally  take  "  fine  history  "  to  be — ah  !  false  history.' 

'  But  fine  history  need  not  be  false,'  said  Phil. 

'  We  usually  find  it  so,'  replied  his  tutor,  '  and  it  is  ten 
times  worse  than  false  quantities  in  a  copy  of  longs  and 
shorts.  There  is  no  worse  offence  outside  the  statute 
book  (and  many  offences  in  it  are  less  immoral)  than  the 
crime  of  making  up  a  picture  of  actual  events  for  the 
sake  of  literary  effect,  with  no  real  care  for  exact  truth- 
fulness of  detail.  A  historical  romance,  as  they  call 
novels  of  past  ages,  is  often  a  source  of  troublesome 
errors ;  but,  at  any  rate,  in  a  novel  we  know  what  to 
expect.  It  is  a  pity  that  Scott  should  talk  nonsense 
about  Robin  Hood  in  Ivanhoe,  and  that  Bulwer  intro- 
duced Caxton  into  the  Last  of  the  Barons.  But  no  one 
expects  to  find  truth  in  such  books,  and  every  one  reads 
them  at  his  own  peril.  In  a  history  of  England  it  is 
monstrous  to  be  careless  about  references,  and  to  trust 
to  a  late  authority.' 

'  But  no  decent  historian  ever  does  intend  to  state 
what  he  knows  to  be  an  error,'  said  Phil,  somewhat  sur- 
prised at  the  warmth  of  the  West  Saxon's  indignation. 


THE   HISTORY   SCHOOLS  129 

1 1  should  think  not  indeed,'  said  Wessex  ;  '  no  one  but 
a  thief  intends  to  take  what  is  not  his  own,  and  no  one 
but  a  liar  means  to  state  what  he  knows  to  be  untrue. 
But  the  historian  of  all  men  is  bound  by  the  sanctities 
of  his  office  to  what  we  call  in  Roman  law  sunima 
diligentia.  And  to  be  thinking  of  his  "  pictures,"  of  the 
scheme  of  his  colours  and  other  literary  effects,  forms  a 
most  dangerous  temptation  to  adopt  the  picturesque 
form  of  a  story  in  place  of  the  recorded  truth.  Un- 
fortunately, as  we  know  to  our  sorrow,  the  materials  of 
the  historian  are  of  almost  every  sort — good,  doubtful, 
and  worthless  ;  the  so-called  histories  go  on  copying  one 
another,  adding  something  to  heighten  the  lights  out  of 
quite  second-rate  authority  ;  a  wrong  reference,  a  false 
date,  a  hearsay  anecdote  gets  into  accepted  histories, 
and  it  costs  years  of  labour  to  get  the  truth  at  last.  If 
you  ever  hope  to  be  a  historian,  you  must  treat  historical 
falsehood  as  you  would  a  mad  dog,  and  never  admit  a 
phrase  or  a  name  which  suggests  an  untruth/ 

'  Has  not  this  purism  been  a  little  overdone?'  said  the 
innocent  freshman.  '  I  remember  that  Freeman  once  told 
us  he  could  not  bear  to  speak  of  the  Battle  of  Hastings,  lest 
some  one  should  imagine  that  it  began  on  the  sea-shore.' 

'  A  fine  example  of  scrupulous  love  of  truth,'  replied 
the  Bede,  '  and  I  wish  that  all  histories  of  England  had 
been  written  in  a  similar  spirit.  Can  anything  be  more 
unscholarly  than  a  readiness  to  accept  a  statement  which 
we  have  not  probed  to  the  core,  simply  because  it  works 
up  into  a  telling  picture,  or  will  point  an  effective  para- 
graph ?  It  is  positively  dishonest !  And  some  of  them 
will  quote  you  a  passage  which  you  discover,  on  collating 
it  with  the  original,  has  a  blunder  in  every  sentence,  and 
a  mistranslation  in  every  page.  If  you  write  a  romance, 
you  may  go  to  your  imagination  for  your  facts.  If  you 

I 


130  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

write  history,  you  should  scrupulously  extract  the  best 
contemporary  record,  and  throw  everything  else  into  the 
fire.  I  sometimes  wish  that  histories  were  not  published 
at  all  in  the  current  English  of  literature,  but  were  plain 
and  disconnected  propositions  of  fact,  like  the  cuneiform 
inscriptions  of  Daryavush  at  Behistun.' 

'  Surely,'  cried  Phil,  with  a  laugh,  '  that  would  be  a 
little  dull !  It  would  be  a  mere  lexicon.  No  one  could 
get  up  Facciolati  or  Littr£  as  we  get  up  Herodotus. 
Besides,  the  enormous  number  of  propositions,  each  of 
which  might  fairly  be  called  "truth,"  would  make  history 
impossible  even  for  the  most  prodigious  memory.' 

'  You  forget,'  said  the  tutor,  '  that  we  treat  history  in 
"  periods  "  of  short  or,  at  any  rate,  of  manageable  length. 
Nobody  has  any  business  out  of  his  own  "  period,"  and 
if  he  trespasses  on  to  another  man's  "period,"  he  is  pretty 
certain  to  be  caught.  The  "  periods"  in  our  schools  are 
far,  far  too  long,  and  encourage  superficial  and  flashy 
habits  of  reading.  I  remember  dear  old  Bodley,  late  Pro- 
fessor of  Palaeography,  who  was  before  your  time,  saying 
N.  that  ten  years  in  the  fourteenth  century  was  about  as 
much  as  any  man  should  try  to  master.  He  died,  poor 
old  boy,  before  his  great  book  was  ever  got  into  shape 
at  all ;  and  perhaps  ten  years  is  rather  short  for  a  distinct 
period.  But  it  takes  a  good  man  to  know  as  much  as  a 
century,  as  it  ought  to  be  known.  And  one  of  our 
greatest  living  masters  in  history,  with  enormous  in- 
dustry and  perseverance,  just  manages  to  write  the 
events  of  one  year  in  the  seventeenth  century  within 
each  twelve-months  of  his  own  laborious  life.' 

Phil  could  stand  this  no  longer.  With  a  whoop  and  a 
bound  (he  had  just  won  the  long  jump  in  his  college 
sports)  he  cleared  the  broad  ditch,  and  alighted  clean 
in  the  meadow  round  which  they  were  tramping. 


THE   HISTORY  SCHOOLS  131 

'  Why,'  he  cried,  as  a  second  bound  brought  him  back 
again  to  the  side  of  his  Venerable  friend,  '  at  that  rate 
we  should  want  at  least  a  hundred  works,  I  suppose  in 
ten  volumes  each,  or  a  thousand  volumes  in  all,  cram 
full  of  gritty  facts  of  no  good  to  any  one.  All  this  week 
I  have  been  entering  in  my  note-book  such  bits  as  this  : 
— "  Ecgfrith  marched  to  a  place  called  the  Hoar  Apple- 
Tree.  It  is  not  known  where  this  is,  or  why  he  went 
there.  He  left  it  the  next  day,  and  neither  he  nor  it  are 
ever  mentioned  again  in  the  chronicles."  What  is  the 
good  to  me  of  knowing  that?'  he  asked,  as  if  a  cheeky 
freshman  was  likely  to  put  the  Reverend  ^Ethelbald  into 
a  tight  place. 

'  Bad,  bad  ! '  said  the  tutor,  who  began  to  fear  that  he 
was  wasting  his  time  on  Phil,  '  you  will  never  be  a  credit 
to  your  college  if  you  can  make  game  of  "  truth  "  like 
that !  One  would  think  a  young  man  who  hoped  to  do 
something  would  care  to  know  a  few  true  facts  about 
his  English  forbears  a  thousand  years  ago.  But  the 
question  is  not  what  you  care  to  know,  but  what  you 
ought  to  know  ;  and  every  Englishman  ought  to  know 
every  word  in  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
rest.  Nor  is  it  a  question  at  all  about  your  thousand 
volumes  of  history,  the  bulk  of  which  deal  with  "periods" 
that  do  not  concern  you  at  all.  Your  thousand  volumes, 
too,  is  a  very  poor  estimate  after  all.  You  would  find 
that  not  ten  thousand  volumes,  perhaps  not  a  hundred 
thousand  volumes,  would  contain  all  the  truths  which 
have  ever  been  recorded  in  contemporary  documents, 
together  with  the  elucidations,  comments,  and  various 
amplifications  which  each  separate  truth  would  properly 
demand.' 

'  But  at  this  rate,'  said  the  freshman  gloomily,  '  I  shall 
never  get  beyond  Ecgfrith  and  the  other  break-jaw  Old 


132  THE    MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

English  sloggers.  When  we  come  up  to  Oxford  we 
never  seem  to  get  out  of  an  infinite  welter  of  "  origins  " 
and  primitive  forms  of  everything.  I  used  to  think  the 
Crusades,  the  Renascence,  Puritanism,  and  the  French 
Revolution,  were  interesting  epochs  or  movements.  But 
here  lectures  seem  to  go  round  and  round  the  Mark- 
system,  or  the  aboriginal  customs  of  the  Jutes.  We 
are  told  that  it  is  mere  literary  trifling  to  take  any  inter- 
est in  Richelieu  and  William  of  Orange,  Frederick  of 
Prussia,  or  Mirabeau  and  Danton.  The  history  of  these 
men  has  been  adequately  treated  in  very  brilliant  books 
which  a  serious  student  must  avoid.  He  must  stick  to 
Saxon  charters  and  the  Doomsday  Survey.' 

'  Of  course,  he  must,'  said  the  tutor,  '  if  that  is  his 
"period" — and  a  very  good  period  it  is.  If  you  know 
how  many  houses  were  inhabited  at  Dorchester  and 
Bridport  at  the  time  of  the  Survey,  and  how  many  there 
had  been  in  the  Old-English  time,  you  know  something 
definite.  But  you  may  write  pages  of  stuff  about  what 
smatterers  call  the  "  philosophy  of  history,"  without  a 
single  sentence  of  solid  knowledge.  When  every  in- 
scription and  every  manuscript  remaining  has  been 
copied  and  accurately  unravelled,  then  we  may  talk 
about  the  philosophy  of  history.' 

'  But  surely,'  said  Crichtonius  mirabilis,  '  you  don't 
wish  me  to  believe  that  there  is  no  intelligible  evolution 
in  the  ages,  and  that  every  statement  to  be  found  in  a 
chronicle  is  as  much  worth  remembering  as  any  other 
statement  ? ' 

'You  have  got  to  remember  them  all,'  replied  the 
Reverend  ^Ethelbald  dogmatically,  '  at  any  rate,  all  in 
your  "  period."  You  may  chatter  about  "  evolution  "  as 
fast  as  you  like,  if  you  take  up  Physical  Science  and  go 
to  that  beastly  museum  ;  but  if  you  mention  "  evolution  " 


THE   HISTORY  SCHOOLS  133 

in  the  History  School,  you  will  be  gulfed — take  my 
word  for  it !  I  daresay  that  all  statements  of  fact — true 
statements  I  mean — may  not  be  of  equal  importance  ; 
but  it  is  far  too  early  yet  to  attempt  to  class  them  in 
order  of  value.  Many  generations  of  scholars  will  have 
to  succeed  each  other,  and  many  libraries  will  have  to 
be  filled,  before  even  our  bare  materials  will  be  complete 
and  ready  for  any  sort  of  comparative  estimate.  All 
that  you  have  to  do,  dear  boy,  is  to  choose  your  period 
(I  hope  it  will  be  Old-English  somewhere) — mark  out 
your  "  claim,"  as  Californian  miners  do,  and  then  wash 
your  lumps,  sift,  crush  quartz,  till  you  find  ore,  and 
don't  cry  "  Gold  ! "  till  you  have  had  it  tested.' 

This  was  a  hard  saying  to  his  Admirable  young 
friend,  who  felt  like  the  rich  young  man  in  the  Gospel 
when  he  was  told  to  sell  all  that  he  had  and  to  follow 
the  Master.  '  I  have  no  taste  for  quartz-crushing,'  said 
he  gloomily  ;  'what  I  care  for  are  Jules  Michelet  on  the 
Middle  Ages,  Macaulay's  pictures  of  Charles  II.  and  his 
court — (wonderful  scene  that,  the  night  of  Charles's 
seizure  at  Whitehall !) — Carlyle  on  Mirabeau  and 
Danton,  and  Froude's  Reformation  and  Armada.  These 
are  the  books  which  stir  my  blood.  Am  I  to  put  all 
these  on  the  shelf? ' 

'  Certainly !  put  them  away  this  very  day  till  you 
have  got  your  class  and  have  gone  on  a  yachting 
holiday :  when  you  may  put  them  in  your  cabin  with 
Scott  and  Dumas,'  said  the  Venerable,  in  his  archiepis- 
copal  manner.  '  Let  me  advise  you  not  to  waste  your 
precious  hours  with  novels.  Michelet,  with  his  stale 
Victor- Hugo  epigrams  and  his  absurd  references  to  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationals — Cabinet  de  Versailles — portrait 
du  Louvre — as  if  that  was  serious  history.  You  might 
as  well  put  the  Trots  Mousquetaires  in  your  list  of 


134  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

books  in  the  History  School.  Macaulay  is  all  very 
well  and  a  real  reader,  of  course ;  but  he  had  always 
one  eye  on  his  sentences,  and  he  would  almost  misquote 
a  manuscript  for  the  sake  of  a  smart  antithesis.  There 
is  far  too  much  about  French  harlots  ;  but  the  worst 
vice  of  his  book  is,  that  it  is  amusing,  which  is  the  only 
real  fault  in  Gibbon.  Carlyle  is  good  on  Cromwell, 
though  he  is  dreadfully  prejudiced  ;  he  had  never  seen 
the  Clark  Papers  and  consequently  he  has  to  be  put 
right  on  a  hundred  points.  And  as  to  his  French 
Revolution,  it  reads  to  me  like  an  extract  from 
Rabelais ;  and  what  on  earth  can  you  have  to  do  with 
the  Encyclopaedists,  Girondins,  Mountain,  and  Sans- 
culottes ? ' 

'  Why,  Oscar  at  Eton  used  to  tell  us,  that  no  part  of 
history  was  more  essential  than  all  that  led  up  to  the 
Revolution  of  1789,  and  all  that  has  led  down  from  it 
to  our  present  day,  and  John  Morley  says  the  same,' 
replied  the  unhappy  fresher. 

'  Oscar's  a  radical  and  John  is  a  terrorist,'  replied  the 
Venerable,  quite  annoyed  at  the  lad's  pertinacity  and 
his  shallow  turn  of  mind.  '  The  French  Revolution  is 
the  happy  hunting-ground  of  all  the  phrase-mongers 
like  Carlyle,  the  doctrinaires  like  Louis  Blanc,  the 
epigrammatists  like  Michelet  and  Taine,  and  the  liars 
like  Thiers  and  Lamartine.  There  is  no  history  to  be 
got  out  of  it  for  a  century  or  two,  till  all  the  manuscripts 
have  been  deciphered  and  all  the  rubbish  that  has  been 
published  is  forgotten.' 

'  Well,  but  come,'  said  Phil  stoutly,  in  his  last  ditch, 
'  you  will  not  bar  Froude,  who  made  up  his  history  at 
Simancas,  and  got  all  his  facts  from  unpublished  manu- 
scripts ? ' 

'  Simancas !    Facts !    Oh,  oh ! '  laughed  the  Reverend 


THE   HISTORY   SCHOOLS  135 

^Ethelbald,  with  his  grim  West-Saxon  chuckle.  '  Si- 
mancas  indeed  !  where,  what,  how  much  ?  what  volume 
or  what  bundle,  what  page,  and  what  folio?  MSS. 
penes  me — is  a  very  convenient  reference,  but  historians 
require  a  little  more  detail  than  this.  I  am  not  going 
to  say  one  word  against  the  Regius  Professor,  who  is 
an  old  friend  of  mine  and  has  written  some  very 
beautiful  pieces  ;  but,  when  you  talk  about  "  facts,"  I 
must  put  you  on  your  guard.  If  you  never  read  the 
Saturday  Revieiv  on  Froude's  Becket,  you  had  better  do 
so  at  once.  They  were  telling  a  good  story  in  Common 
Room  the  other  day  about  the  reviewer.  He  hated 
music,  and  so  when  he  intended  to  send  a  smasher  to 
the  Saturday,  he  got  some  one  to  play  him  "  The  Battle 
of  Prague,"  or  the  "  Carnaval  de  Venise,"  which  would 
make  him  dancing  mad,  till  you  could  hear  the  old 
lion's  tail  lashing  his  sides.  I  never  went  into  the 
references  myself — it  is  not  in  my  period — but  all  I  say 
is  this — that  z/~the  references  and  citations  are  as  full  of 
mistakes  as  the  Saturday  said  (mind  you,  I  only  say  if 
— for  I  take  no  part  in  the  quarrel),  it  is  worse  than 
picking  a  pocket.  People  may  wonder  how  it  is 
possible  for  such  things  to  be  done  by  a  dear  old  man 
whom  we  all  love,  who  is  the  soul  of  honour  in  private 
life,  and  who  says  such  beautiful  things  about  religion, 
morality,  and  the  ethics  of  statesmen.  Well !  I  don't 
know  ;  but  in  history  you  cannot  trust  a  fellow  who  tries^X 
to  be  interesting.  If  he  pretends  to  be  "  philosophical," 
you  may  know  him  to  be  an  impostor.  But,  if  he  aims 
at  being  interesting  or  at  anything  like  a  fine  picture, 
he  is  not  far  off  saying  the  thing  that  is  not.' 

'  Come,  now,'  cried  Phil  with  spirit,  for  he  felt  that 
his  turn  had  come,  '  you  may  talk  about  the  Saturday 
articles,  which  are  ancient  history  in  the  bad  sense  of 


136  THE   MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

the  term,  but  what  do  you  say  to  the  Quarterly  articles, 
and  the  palpable  blunders  it  exposes?  What  about 
Wace's  "palisades"  at  Hastings?  And  why  didn't 
Freeman  cite  the  Abb£  Baudri  ?  And  why  did  he 
misquote  the  Survey  over  and  over  again  ?  And  why 
are  we  not  to  use  the  fine  old  English  term,  "  Battle  of 
Hastings  " — the  only  name  given  in  the  Tapestry,  Guy 
of  Amiens,  and  the  rest — and  are  told  we  must  always 
use,  if  we  value  truth,  the  term,  "  Battle  of  Senlac  " — a 
mere  mythical  phrase — a  piece  of  affectation  of  "  dear 
old  Orderic"  in  his  Norman  monastery?  Why,  years 
ago  a  man  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  pointed  out  that 
to  talk  nowadays  of  the  Battle  of  Senlac  was  as  absurd 
as  if  a  Frenchman  were  now  to  try  to  rechristen  the 
Battle  of  Waterloo  the  Battle  of  Hougoumont !  What 
do  you  say  to  the  Quarterly  on  the  Norman  Conquest?' 
asked  Phil  impetuously,  for  he  felt  that  he  had  got  his 
knife  into  the  Bede. 

'  I  am  sure  we  need  not  mind  all  these  anonymous 
personalities,'  said  the  Venerable  one  somewhat  stiffly, 
for  he  felt  that  the  last  Quarterly  article  was  rather  a 
nasty  hit ;  and  as  yet  he  had  not  the  remotest  idea  how 
it  ought  to  be  answered.  '  But  here,  bless  me ! '  he 
cried,  ' comes  Middleman,  of  the  House;  what  brings 
him  to  Oxford  just  now,  I  wonder.'  And  indeed,  the 
tutor  was  not  at  all  sorry  that  the  conversation  with  his 
young  friend  should  be  suddenly  broken  off. 

'  Dear  old  man,  what  luck  for  me  to  meet  you,'  said 
the  newcomer  genially  ;  '  I  am  going  to  examine  in  the 
Law  School,  and  have  run  up  for  a  couple  of  days  to 
consult  about  the  papers.  I  am  staying  with  Bryce,'  he 
explained.  Jack  Middleman,  Q.C.,  was  a  young  lawyer 
of  much  promise ;  he  was  already  in  Parliament  and 
had  expectations  of  office  when  Lord  Salisbury  returns 


THE   HISTORY  SCHOOLS  137 

to  power.  Though  he  had  been  twelve  years  in  good 
practice,  he  kept  up  his  reading  and  his  love  of  Oxford. 
The  Courts  were  not  sitting,  and  he  had  run  up  to  see 
some  of  the  residents. 

'  Our  new  scholar,  Raleigh,'  said  Wessex,  introducing 
Phil  to  the  Q.C. ;  'he  is  attending  the  lectures  of  the 
Regius  Professor  of  History,  and  I  am  trying  to  show 
him  the  difference  between  the  late  Professor  and  the 
present  You  can  tell  him  what  Freeman  was,  for  you 
used  to  be  one  of  his  ardent  admirers  and  closest 
henchmen.' 

'  Yes,  indeed,'  said  Middleman ;  '  he  was  a  noble 
scholar,  and  I  read  and  re-read  every  line  he  wrote. 
But  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  the  other  method 
of  work.' 

'Just  so,'  said  Phil,  much  relieved.  'I  have  been 
sticking  up  for  Froude's  pictures  of  Henry  vill., 
Elizabeth  and  Mary  of  Scots,  the  Reformation  and  the 
Armada.  I  won't  believe  that  literary  history  is  quite 
done  yet.' 

'  Literary  history ! '  laughed  Wessex,  who  had  re- 
covered his  good  humour ;  '  why  not  say  melodious 
science  ! — delicious  philosophy  ! — graceful  law  !  or  any 
other  paradoxical  confusion  of  metaphors  ?  "  Literary  / 
history "  is  a  contradiction  in  terms,  is  it  not,  Middle- 
man?' 

'  Well,'  said  the  lawyer,  who  was  great  at  Nisi  prius, 
'  Let    us    know    what    we    mean    by    literary    history. 
History  in  which  the  narrative  of  events  is  made  sub-  s 
servient  to  literary  effect  is  an  impudent  swindle.     But 
the  history  which  has  no   quality  of  literature  at  all,     >* 
neither  power  of  expression  nor  imaginative  insight,  is 
nothing   but   materials,   the   bricks   and  stones   out   of 
which   some  one    one    day  might  build  a   house.       If 


138  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

"  literary  history "  means  Lamartinc's  History  of  the 
Girondists,  it  is  a  sneaking  form  of  the  historical  novel. 
But  if  literary  history  means  Tacitus  and  Gibbon,  it  is 
the  highest  and  the  true  form  of  history.  What  have 
you  been  lecturing  upon  this  term,  Wessex  ? ' 

'  Well,'  said  the  Venerable,  '  for  the  last  three  terms 
we  have  been  on  the  West-Saxon  coinage,  and  the  year 
before  that  I  took  up  the  system  oi  frith-borrow? 

1 1  should  like  to  hear  your  course  on  the  legal  and 
administrative  reforms  of  the  Norman  Kings,'  said  the 
lawyer ;  '  it  is  a  fine  subject,  from  which  we  in  the 
Temple  might  learn  more  than  from  Meeson  and 
Welsby? 

'  I  have  not  reached  the  Norman  Conquest  yet,'  said 
the  Reverend  ^Ethelbald  simply,  '  for  we  have  been  ten 
years  over  the  Old- English  times  ;  but  I  hope  to  get 
down  to  Eadweard  before  I  leave  the  college.' 

'  You  have  got  so  fearfully  griindlich  since  my  time,' 
said  Jack,  'that  I  feel  quite  out  of  it  at  Oxford. 
History  seems  to  be  seen  nowadays  with  some  such 
apparatus  as  the  naturalists  describe  the  eye  of  a  fly 
magnified  to  ten  thousand  diameters.  Now,  I  used  to 
think  Gibbon  to  be  the  type  of  a  great  historian.  He 
gives  you  in  eight  volumes  the  history  of  the  civilised 
world,  for  a  period  not  short  of  a  thousand  years,  with 
a  scholar's  grasp  of  the  recorded  facts,  a  masterly 
insight  into  the  leading  movements,  and  a  style  that 
moves  on  like  a  Roman  triumph  in  one  unbroken  but 
varied  pageant.  You  have  not  given  up  Gibbon  at 
Oxford,  have  you  ? '  said  the  lawyer. 

'  Oh  no,'  replied  the  tutor ;  but  he  added  with  the 
scintilla  of  a  sneer, '  Gibbon  made  some  mistakes,  you 
know ;  and  in  the  last  hundred  years  a  good  deal  has 
been  discovered  that  he  never  heard  of.  I  always  warn 


THE   HISTORY   SCHOOLS  139 

our  young  people  to  read  Gibbon  with  great  caution, 
and  never  without  their  Muratori  and  their  Pertz  at 
hand.  It  isn't  possible,  is  it,'  asked  the  tutor  in  that  sly 
way  of  his  which  so  much  frightened  undergraduates, '  to 
put  the  true  facts  of  a  century  into  five  hundred  pages  ? ' 

'  You  don't  want  all  the  facts,'  said  Jack  decisively, 
'and  you  could  not  remember  or  use  a  tenth  part  of/"" 
them  if  you  could  get  them.     And,  what  is  more,  you 
cannot  get  at  the  exact   truth  of  every  fact,  however 
much  you  labour.      Such    minute   accuracy   in    unim-     >^ 
portant  trifles  is  not  only  utterly  unattainable,  but  it' 
would  be  miserable  pedantry  to  look  for  it' 

'  Trifles ! '  cried  out  the  Venerable  in  horror  ;  '  you 
don't  call  any  historical  truths  trifles,  do  you  ? ' 

'  Yes !  I  call  it  an  unimportant  trifle,'  said  Jack, 
'  whether  ^Elfgifu  stayed  one  day  or  two  days  at  Cant- 
warabyrig,  and  it  is  waste  of  time  to  discuss  the  question 
in  fifty  pages.  You  see  that  you  cannot  get  at  the 
exact  facts  for  all  your  pains.  You  know  the  row 
about  Freeman's  palisades  at  the  Battle  of  Hastings. 
I  pass  no  opinion,  for  I  would  not  waste  my  time  over 
such  rubbish,  and  I  don't  care  a  sceat  or  a  scilling 
whether  there  were  palisades  at  Senlac  or  not.  I 
daresay  Freeman  made  slips  like  other  people,  possibly 
blunders — it  would  be  a  miracle  if  he  did  not.  But  all 
this  fuss  about  his  blunders,  and  much  of  the  fuss  he 
made  about  Froude's  blunders,  is  poor  fun.  Freeman 
was  a  consummate  historical  scholar,  and  Froude  is  an 
elegant  historical  writer,  and  both  have  given  us  most 
interesting  and  valuable  books,  for  which  we  ought  to 
be  truly  grateful,  however  widely  the  two  books  differ 
in  method.' 

'Does  not  Freeman  overdo  his  love  of  the  Old 
English?'  said  Phil. 


140  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

'  Is  not  Froude  a  blind  advocate  of  Henry  VIII.?'  asked 
the  tutor. 

'  Both  of  them,  no  doubt,  have  very  strong  personal 
feelings  and  keen  party  interests,'  said  the  Q.C.,  c  and 
both  might  have  been  free  from  much  of  what  the 
world  calls  their  bias  or  their  prejudice,  if  they  had  been 
accustomed  to  deal  with  history  in  a  far  more  general 
or  organic  spirit  as  the  biography  of  mankind  ;  and  if 
both  had  not  striven  to  unravel  every  incident  in  their 
limited  periods,  much  as  we  seek  to  unravel  the  facts 
of  a  murder  or  a  fraud.  When  we  have  a  great  trial  in 
court,  we  have  the  living  witnesses  before  us  ;  we  con- 
front them  with  the  accused  ;  we  examine  them  on 
oath,  we  cross-examine  them,  and  re-examine  them  ; 
and  then  my  Lord  sums  up  the  evidence  without  any 
kind  of  feeling  in  the  matter,  and  twelve  jurymen  have 
got  to  decide.  Well,  after  all  that,  we  know  the  jury 
do  sometimes  toss  up  for  the  verdict ;  they  are  very 
often  wrong,  but  we  seldom  hang  the  innocent  man  or 
let  off  a  confirmed  rogue.  With  all  our  pains,  and  the 
cross-examination  of  living  witnesses,  we  are  often 
beaten,  and  admit  that  we  cannot  get  to  the  bottom  of 
it.  No  lawyer  would  hope  to  find  out  the  true  story  of 
anything  if  a  witness  could  never  be  brought  into  court, 
and  if  no  evidence  could  ever  be  sifted  by  cross-ex- 
amination. But  cross-examination  is  always  impossible 
to  the  historian.  You  historians  have  only  to  rely  on 
the  most  plausible  story  you  can  find  in  a  bundle  of  old 
papers,  the  origin  of  which  is  usually  doubtful.  How 
can  you  extract  anything  that  we  should  call  legal 
evidence  in  court,  and  how  can  you  get  "  at  truth  "  by  a 
method  of  investigation  which  any  lawyer  would  tell 
you  was  ridiculous  ? ' 

'Do  you  mean  to  tell  us  that  the  facts  of  history 


THE   HISTORY   SCHOOLS  141 

are  not  to  be  discovered  by  competent  research  ? '  asked 
the  tutor  in  dismay. 

'  Certainly,  the  general  facts  of  history  are  ascertain- 
able  in  all  their  leading  characters,  if  we  are  content  to 
strike  an  average,  or  to  look  at  sufficiently  wide  epochs 
and  at  the  dominant  tendencies  and  creative  spirits. 
Research  and  insight  together  will  enable  you  to  grasp 
the  main  features  of  an  age  and  the  essential  qualities 
of  a  great  man.  But  no  research  and  no  insight,  and 
no  labour  and  no  subdivision  of  labour  will  ever  enable 
you  to  reach  the  literal  and  particular  truth  about  every 
minor  incident,  or  to  penetrate  to  the  inner  motives  and 
secret  disposition  of  every  man  and  woman  who  crosses 
the  stage  of  history.  We  cannot  do  this  for  contem- 
porary persons  and  events  around  us,  with  all  the 
methods  of  inquiry  which  contemporary  facts  and 
characters  admit.  Much  less  can  we  do  it  for  distant 
ages,  with  nothing  but  the  remnants  of  meagre  and 
suspicious  records.  People  are  still  disputing  in  the 
newspapers  about  the  famous  ball  before  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo,  and  why  Bazaine  surrendered  Metz,  and  how 
the  Archbishop  was  killed  or  the  Tuileries  burnt  down 
in  the  commune  of  Paris.  If  the  exact  truth  of  what 
happened  a  generation  or  two  ago  is  often  obscure 
whilst  hundreds  of  eye-witnesses  are  still  living,  how 
can  you  be  certain  whether  Harold  built  a  palisade  at 
Battle  or  not  ? ' 

'If  he  didn't,' cried  Wessex,  in  a  visible  pet,  'I  will 
give  up  Freeman  and  the  Old  English  for  ever ! ' 

'  I  have  far  too  great  admiration  for  Freeman,'  said 
the  young  M.P.,  'to  stake  his  reputation  on  a  matter  of 
stakes.  No !  Freeman  was  an  indefatigable  inquirer 
into  early  records,  but  he  muddled  away  his  sense  of 
proportion.  He  was  not  a  philosopher  like  Thucydides 


142  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

and  Tacitus,  nor  a  great  writer  like  Robertson  and 
Gibbon  ;  and  he  made  the  mistake  of  all  specialists, 
that  labour  and  minuteness  can  do  the  work  of  imagina- 
tion and  insight.  The  microscopic  eye,  with  its  power 
of  ten  thousand  diameters,  will,  after  all,  only  show  an 
infinite  series  of  minute  specks.  It  will  not  put  them 
together,  nor  will  it  make  an  intelligible  portrait  of  a 
whole.  Froude  is  a  fine  writer,  who  has  painted  a  set 
of  brilliant  scenes  ;  but  to  understand  the  great  religious 
and  intellectual  forces  of  the  sixteenth  century  in 
Europe  requires  a  far  larger  range  than  is  disclosed  at 
Simancas,  and  a  deeper  philosophy  than  Carlyle's,  which 
may  be  summed  up  as  detestation  of  Popery  and  the 
people.  A  great  history  cannot  be  made  either  by 
microscopic  analysis  or  by  pictorial  bravura.  The 
palaeo-photo-graphic  method  only  gives  you  a  shapeless 
pile  of  separate  bricks.  The  chiaroscuro-impressionist 
method  will  give  you  some  glowing  pictures ;  but  then 
wicked  people  start  up  and  say  they  are  not  true,  and 
not  fair.' 

'  What  method,  then,  has  to  be  followed  by  any  great 
history  ? '  cried  out  in  the  same  breath  the  tutor  and  the 
freshman. 

'  Well,  what  I  would  advise  a  young  man  going  into 
the  historical  line  to  bespeak  is — first,  indefatigable 
research  into  all  the  accessible  materials ;  secondly,  a 
sound  philosophy  of  human  evolution  ;  thirdly,  a  genius 
for  seizing  on  the  typical  movements  and  the  great 
men  ;  and  lastly,  the  power  of  a  true  artist  in  grouping 
subjects  and  in  describing  typical  men  and  events.  All 
four  are  necessary ;  and. you  seem  to  think  at  Oxford 
that  the  first  is  enough  without  the  rest.  But,  unless 
you  have  a  real  philosophy  of  history,  you  have  nothing 
but  your  own  likings  and  dislikings  to  direct  your 


THE   HISTORY   SCHOOLS  143 

judgment  of  men  and  movements.  Unless  you  have 
the  insight  to  select  and  classify  your  facts,  you  and 
your  readers  will  be  lost  in  a  sea  of  details.  Not  one 
fact  in  a  hundred  is  worth  preservation,  just  as  biology 
could  only  exist  as  a  science  by  judicious  selection  of 
typical  forms.  To  do  anything  else  is  to  assume  that 
induction  could  take  place  in  logic,  as  Aldrich  says, 
per  enumerations n  simplicem.  And  lastly,  unless  you 
can  impress  on  your  readers'  minds  a  vivid  idea  of  some 
given  world  or  some  representative  man,  you  will  only 
send  them  to  sleep.  If  the  historical  romance  can  do 
nothing  but  mislead,  the  historical  ditch-water  will 
only  disgust.' 

'  And  who  ever  united  all  these  four  qualifications  ? ' 
said  the  tutor. 

'  Why,  Gibbon  did,  or  very  nearly,  and  that  is  his 
supreme  merit.  He  was  as  learned  as  Mommsen,  and 
as  accurate  as  Freeman ;  he  had  something  of  the 
philosophy  of  Hume,  and  almost  as  much  critical 
judgment  as  Robertson  ;  and  he  was  nearly  as  great  an 
artist  as  Herodotus  or  Livy.  Mommsen's  Rome  might 
be  put  beside  Gibbon's  for  its  learning,  insight,  judg- 
ment, and  concentration  had  he  only  a  spark  of  Gibbon's 
fire  and  art.  But  as  a  German,  how  could  we  expect  it 
from  him  ?  Henri  Martin's  France  might  be  named 
with  Gibbon's  Rome  if  the  worthy  Frenchman  had  been 
equal  to  six  volumes  instead  of  sixteen.  Grote's  Greece 
is  a  fine  book,  but,  like  Freeman,  he  is  overwhelmed  in 
the  volume  of  his  own  minutice  and  his  extravagant 
passion  for  his  Chosen  People.' 

'  And  is  that  the  whole  of  the  list  you  could  make  of 
the  really  good  histories  ? '  asked  the  tutor. 

'  Not  at  all,'  replied  the  lawyer  ;  '  there  are  plenty  of 
good  books — but  I  should  hardly  call  any  of  them  great 


144  THE  MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

by  the  side  of  Gibbon.  There  is  Milman's  Latin  Chris- 
tianity, and  Curtius  and  Duncker,  Thirlwall's  Greece, 
Merivale's  Rome,  Michelet's  France,  Finlay's  Greece, 
Carlyle's  Cromwell,  and  Ranke's  Popes,  Duruy's  Rome, 
Green's  Short  History,  and  a  dozen  more,  not  to  weary 
you  with  a  catalogue.  But  they  all,  no  doubt,  have 
their  limitations.  Some  are  not  adequately  critical  ; 
some  fall  short  in  real  study ;  some  are  more  or  less 
perverse  ;  and  some  are  indifferent  artists.' 

'  Not  one  of  them  can  be  put  beside  the  Norman 
Conquest  for  profound  research,'  cried  Wessex. 

'  Nor  beside  Froude  for  beauty  of  style/  cried  Phil. 

'  Well,  I  admire  both,  as  I  tell  you,'  said  Jack,  '  but  I 
doubt  if  the  method  of  either  is  destined  to  give  us 
much  more  in  the  future.  The  vast  accumulation  of 
historical  material  is  an  excellent  and  essential  thing. 
But  to  deluge  the  world  with  mere  extracts  and  trans- 
lations of  these  undigested  documents,  as  the  host  of 
Freemanikins  threaten  to  do,  is  a  dismal  outlook.  If 
the  history  of  the  world  is  to  be  written  on  that  scale, 
the  British  Museum  will  not  contain  the  books  that 
shall  be  written.  And  no  human  intellect  could  master 
or  use  them  when  they  were  written.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  pictorial  method  is  constantly  seducing  its 
votaries  into  inaccurate,  garbled,  and  over-coloured 
pictures.  We  want  more  concentration,  greater  breadth, 
a  higher  philosophy.' 

'  You  speak  as  if  history  were  played  out,'  said  the 
Bede.' 

'  It  has  to  be  put  upon  a  new  footing,  I  firmly  believe/ 
said  the  politician.  '  History  is  only  one  department  of 
Sociology,  just  as  Natural  History  is  the  descriptive 
part  of  Biology.  And  History  will  have  to  be  brought 
most  strictly  under  the  guidance  and  inspiration  of 


THE   HISTORY   SCHOOLS  145 

Social  Philosophy.  The  day  of  the  chronicler  is  past;  the 
day  of  the  litterateur  is  past.  The  field  of  knowledge 
is  too  vast  for  the  whole  of  the  facts  to  be  set  forth,  or 
a  tenth  of  them.  To  confine  ourselves  to  "  periods  "  is 
to  destroy  our  sense  of  unity  and  proportion,  and  to 
weaken  our  brain  by  ceasing  to  regard  history  as  the 
handmaid  and  instrumentof  Social  Philosophy.  Excerpts 
from  ten  thousand  chronicles  are  useful  as  dictionaries 
and  collections,  but  they  are  a  mere  nuisance  as  con- 
tinuous histories.  It  may  be  that  Gibbon's  masterpiece 
is  destined  to  be  the  last  example  of  that  rarest  of 
combinations — profound  scholarship  with  splendid  art. 
Since  his  age  there  has  grown  up  a  sense  of  the  unity 
of  human  evolution  and  a  solid  philosophy  of  society. 
The  histories  of  the  future  will,  no  doubt,  fill  up  and 
complete,  illustrate,  and  correct,  that  general  plan  of 
the  biography  of  humanity.  They  will  follow,  more 
likely,  the  method  of  Mommsen  in  his  Roman  Provinces, 
or  Bishop  Stubbs's  Constitutional  History — the  fine  old 
way  of  Heeren,  Hallam,  Guizot ;  they  group  move- 
ments and  forces,  rather  than  narrate  events.  They 
will  no  longer  chronicle  small  beer  or  paint  melo- 
dramatic scenes.  They  will  illustrate  philosophy.' 

'  Well,  good-bye,  Wessex,'  said  Jack  ;  '  I  hope  that 
next  time  we  meet,  you  will  have  got  on  to  the  Norman 
Kings — they  were  worth  a  score  of  Ecgberhts — and  I 
hope  my  young  friend  here  will  one  day  write  another 
prize  essay  fit  to  compare  with  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 
I  must  be  off:  the  Magdalen  bells  have  begun.' 


K 


CHAPTER    V 

A  SURVEY  OF  THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  ' 

HE  who  would  understand  the  Middle  Ages  must  make 
a  special  study  of  the  thirteenth  century — one  of  the 
landmarks  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world, 
one  of  the  most  pregnant,  most  organic,  most  memorable, 
in  the  annals  of  mankind.  It  is  an  epoch  (perhaps  the 
last  of  the  centuries  of  which  this  can  be  said)  crowded 
with  names  illustrious  in  action,  in  thought,  in  art,  in 
religion  equally ;  which  is  big  with  those  problems, 
intellectual,  social,  political,  and  spiritual  that  six 
succeeding  centuries  have  in  vain  toiled  to  solve. 

A  '  Century '  is,  of  course,  a  purely  arbitrary  limit  of 
time.  But  for  practical  purposes  we  can  only  reckon 
by  years  and  groups  of  years.  And,  as  in  the  biography 
of  a  man,  we  speak  of  the  happy  years  of  a  life,  or  a 
decade  of  great  activity,  so  it  is  convenient  to  speak  of 
a  brilliant  '  century,'  if  we  attach  no  mysterious  value  to 
our  artificial  measure  of  time.  It  happens,  however, 
that  the  thirteenth  century  not  only  has  a  really 
distinctive  character  of  its  own,  but  that,  near  to  its 
beginning  and  to  its  close,  very  typical  events  occurred. 
In  1198  took  place  the  election  of  Innocent  III.,  the 
most  successful,  perhaps  the  most  truly  representative 
name,  of  all  the  mediaeval  popes.  In  the  year  preceding 
(1197)  we  may  see  tne  Empire  visibly  beginning  to 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  vol.  1.,  N.s.     September  1891. 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      147 

change  its  spirit  with  the  death  of  Henry  vi.,  the 
ferocious  son  of  Barbarossa.  In  the  year  following 
(1199)  died  Richard  Lion-heart,  the  last  of  the  Anglo- 
French  sovereigns,  and,  we  may  say,  the  last  of  the 
genuine  Crusader  kings,  to  be  succeeded  by  his  brother 
John,  who  was  happily  forced  to  become  an  English 
king,  and  to  found  the  Constitution  of  England  by 
signing  the  Great  Charter. 

And  at  the  end  of  the  century,  its  last  year  (1300)  is 
the  date  of  the  ominous  '  Jubilee '  of  the  Papacy — the 
year  in  which  Dante  places  his  great  poem — a  year 
which  is  one  of  the  most  convenient  points  in  the 
memoria  technica  of  modern  history.  Three  years  later 
died  Boniface  VIIL,  after  the  tremendous  humiliation 
which  marked  the  manifest  decadence  of  the  Papacy ; 
eight  years  later  began  the  '  Babylonish  Captivity,'  the 
seventy  years'  exile  of  the  Papacy  at  Avignon  ;  then 
came  the  ruin  of  the  Templars  throughout  Europe,  and 
all  the  tragedies  and  convulsions  which  mark  the  reigns 
of  Philip  the  Fair  in  France,  Edward  II.  in  England, 
and  the  confusion  that  overtook  the  Empire  on  the 
death  of  Henry  of  Luxembourg,  that  last  hope  of 
imperial  ambition.  Thus,  taking  the  period  between 
the  election  of  Innocent  III.,  in  1198,  and  the  removal 
of  the  Papacy  to  Avignon,  in  1308,  we  find  a  very 
definite  character  in  the  thirteenth  century.  It  would, 
of  course,  be  necessary  to  fix  the  view  on  Europe  as  a 
whole,  or  rather  on  Latin  Christendom,  to  obtain  any 
unity  of  conception  ;  and,  obviously,  the  development 
and  decay  of  the  Church  must  be  the  central  point,  for 
this  is  at  once  the  most  general  and  the  important 
element  in  the  common  life  of  Christendom. 

Within  the  limits  of  the  thirteenth  century,  so 
understood,  a  series  of  striking  events  and  great  names 


148  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

is  crowded — the  growth,  culmination,  extravagance,  and 
then  the  humiliation  of  the  Papal  See  ;  the  eighteen 
years'  rule  of  Innocent  ill.,  the  fourteen  years  of 
Gregory  IX.,  the  twenty-one  of  Innocent  IV. ;  the  short 
revival  of  Gregory  X.  ;  the  ambition,  the  pride,  the 
degradation,  and  shame  of  Boniface  VIII.  The  great 
experiment  to  organise  Christendom  under  a  single 
spiritual  sovereign  had  been  made  by  some  of  the  most 
aspiring  natures,  and  the  most  consummate  politicians 
who  ever  wore  mitre — had  been  made  and  failed.  When 
the  popes  returned  from  Avignon  to  Rome  in  1378, 
after  the  seventy  years  of  exile  from  their  capital,  it  was 
to  find  the  Catholic  world  rent  with  schism,  a  series  of 
anti-popes,  heresy,  and  the  seeds  of  the  Reformation  in 
England  and  in  Germany.  Thus  the  secession  to 
Avignon  in  the  opening  of  the  fourteenth  century  was 
the  beginning  of  the  end  of  spiritual  unity  for  Latin 
Christendom. 

At  the  very  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
diversion  of  the  Crusade  to  the  capture  of  Constantinople 
in  1 204,  and  all  the  incidents  of  that  unholy  war,  prove 
that,  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  movement,  the  era  of 
Godfrey  and  Tancred,  of  Peter  the  Hermit  and  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux  was  ended  ;  and  though,  for  a  century  or 
two,  kings  took  the  Cross,  like  St.  Louis  and  our 
Edward  I.,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  or,  like  our 
Henry  V.,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  talked  of  so  doing, 
the  hope  of  annihilating  Islam  was  gone  for  ever,  and 
Christendom,  for  four  centuries,  had  enough  to  do  to 
protect  Europe  itself  from  the  Moslem.  And  within  a 
few  years  of  this  cynical  prostitution  of  the  Crusading 
enthusiasm  in  the  conquest  of  Byzantium,  the  Crusading 
passion  broke  out  in  the  dreadful  persecution  of  the 
Albigenses  and  the  Crusade  against  heresy  of  Simon  de 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE  THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      149 

Montfort.  And  hardly  was  the  unity  of  Christendom 
assured  by  blood  and  terror,  when  the  spiritual  Crusades 
of  Francis  and  Dominic  begin,  and  the  contagious  zeal 
of  the  Mendicant  Friars  restored  the  force  of  the  Church, 
and  gave  it  a  new  era  of  moral  and  social  vitality. 

Now,  whilst  the  Popes  were  making  their  last  grand 
rally  to  weld  Christendom  into  spiritual  unity,  in 
France,  in  England,  in  Spain,  in  North  Italy,  in  South 
Italy,  in  Southern  Germany,  in  a  minor  degree  through- 
out central  Europe,  princes  of  great  energy  were 
organising  the  germs  of  nations,  and  were  founding 
the  institutions  of  complex  civil  administration.  Mon- 
archy, municipalities,  nations,  and  organised  government, 
national  constitutions,  codes  of  law,  a  central  police, 
and  international  trade  wrere  growing  uniformly  through- 
out the  entire  century.  Feudalism,  strictly  so  called, 
the  baron's  autocracy,  baronial  war,  and  the  manor 
court,  were  as  rapidly  dying  down.  Crushed  between 
the  hammer  of  the  kings  and  the  anvil  of  the  burghers, 
the  feudal  chivalry  suffered,  in  many  a  bloody  field,  a 
series  of  shameful  overthrows  all  through  the  fourteenth 
century,  until  it  ended  in  the  murderous  orgies  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  But  it  was  the  thirteenth  century 
that  established  throughout  Europe  the  two  great  forces 
of  the  future  which  were  to  divide  the  inheritance  of 
feudalism — a  civilised  and  centralised  monarchy  on  the 
one  hand,  a  rich,  industrious,  resolute  people  on  the 
other  hand. 

It  was  the  thirteenth  century,  moreover,  that  saw 
the  great  development  of  the  manufacturing  and  trading 
cities  north  of  the  Alps.  Down  to  the  expulsion  of  the 
Christians  from  Palestine,  at  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century,  there  had  been  few  cities  in  Europe  of  wealth 
and  importance  outside  Italy  and  the  South  of  France 


150  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

and  of  Spain.  But  the  next  hundred  years  founded  the 
greatness  of  cities  like  Paris  and  London,  of  Troyes, 
Rouen,  Lyons,  Bordeaux,  Bruges,  Ghent,  Cologne,  Strass- 
burg,  Basle,  Nuremberg,  Bremen,  Lubeck,  Hamburg, 
Dantzic,  Winchester,  Norwich,  Exeter,  Bristol.  The 
Crusades  had  brought  Europe  together,  and  had  brought 
the  West  face  to  face  with  the  East.  Mankind  had 
ceased  to  be  ascriptus  gleba,  locally  bound  to  a  few 
clearings  on  the  earth.  It  had  begun  to  understand 
the  breadth  and  variety  of  the  planet,  and  the  infinite 
resources  of  its  products.  Industrial  exchange  on  a 
world-wide  scale  began  again  after  a  long  interval  of 
ten  centuries. 

The  latter  half  of  this  same  century  also  saw  the 
birth  of  that  characteristic  feature  of  modern  society— 
the  control  of  political  power  by  representative  assem- 
blies. For  the  first  time  in  Europe  deputies  from  the 
towns  take  part  in  the  national  councils.  In  Spain  this 
may  be  traced  even  before  the  century  begins.  Early 
in  the  century  it  is  found  in  Sicily  ;  about  the  middle  of 
the  century  we  trace  it  in  England  and  Germany  ;  and 
finally,  in  France.  As  every  one  knows,  it  was  in  1264 
that  Simon  de  Montfort  summoned  to  Parliament 
knights  of  each  shire,  and  two  representatives  from 
boroughs  and  cities;  and,  in  1295,  Edward  I.  called 
together  the  first  fully-constituted  Parliament  as  now 
understood  in  England.  The  States-General  of  France, 
the  last  and  the  least  memorable  of  all  national  Parlia- 
ments, were  only  seven  years  subsequent  to  the  formal 
inauguration  of  the  Parliament  of  England.  The  in- 
troduction of  Parliamentary  representation  would  alone 
suffice  to  make  memorable  the  thirteenth  century. 

The   same   age,   too,   which   was   so   fertile   in    new 
political  ideas  and  in  grand  spiritual  effort,  was  no  less 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      151 

rich  in  philosophy,  in  the  germs  of  science,  in  reviving 
the  inheritance  of  ancient  learning,  in  the  scientific 
study  of  law,  in  the  foundation  of  the  great  Northern 
universities,  in  the  magnificent  expansion  of  the  archi- 
tecture we  call  Gothic,  in  the  beginnings  of  painting 
and  of  sculpture,  in  the  foundation  of  modern  literature, 
both  in  prose  and  verse,  in  the  fullest  development  of 
the  Troubadours,  the  Romance  poets,  the  lays,  sonnets, 
satires,  and  tales  of  Italy,  Provence,  and  Flanders ;  and 
finally,  in  that  stupendous  poem,  which  we  universally 
accept  as  the  greatest  of  modern  epical  works,  wherein 
the  most  splendid  genius  of  the  Middle  Ages  seemed  to 
chant  its  last  majestic  requiem,  which  he  himself,  as  I 
have  said,  emphatically  dated  in  the  year  1 300.  Truly, 
if  we  must  use  arbitrary  numbers  to  help  our  memory, 
that  year — 1300 — may  be  taken  as  the  resplendent 
sunset  of  an  epoch  which  had  extended  in  one  form 
back  for  nearly  one  thousand  years  to  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  equally  as  the  broken  and  stormy 
dawn  of  an  epoch  which  has  for  six  hundred  years 
since  been  passing  through  an  amazing  phantasmagoria 
of  change. 

Now  this  great  century,  the  last  of  the  true  Middle 
Ages,  which,  as  it  drew  to  its  own  end,  gave  birth  to 
Modern  Society,  has  a  special  character  of  its  own,  a 
character  that  gives  to  it  an  abiding  and  enchanting 
interest  We  find  in  it  a  harmony  of  power,  a  universality 
of  endowment,  a  glow,  an  aspiring  ambition  and  con- 
fidence, such  as  we  never  again  find  in  later  centuries, 
at  least  so  generally  and  so  permanently  diffused.  At 
the  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Christendom,  as 
a  whole,  rested  united  in  profound  belief  in  one  religious 
faith.  There  had  appeared  in  the  age  preceding  teachers 
of  new  doctrines,  like  Abailard,  Gilbert  de  la  Poree, 


152  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  and  others  ;  but  their  new  ideas  had 
nqt  at  all  penetrated  to  the  body  of  the  people.  As  a 
whole,  Christendom  had  still,  as  the  century  began,  an 
unquestioned  and  unquestionable  creed,  without  schism, 
heresy,  doubts,  or  sects.  And  this  creed  still  sufficed 
to  inspire  the  most  profound  thought,  the  most  lofty 
poetry,  the  widest  culture,  the  freest  art  of  the  age :  it 
filled  statesmen  with  awe,  scholars  with  enthusiasm,  and 
consolidated  society  around  uniform  objects  of  reverence 
and  worship.  It  bound  men  together,  from  the  Hebrides 
to  the  Eastern  Mediterranean,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Baltic,  as  European  men  have  never  since  been  bound. 
Great  thinkers,  like  Albert  of  Cologne  and  Aquinas, 
found  it  to  be  the  stimulus  of  their  meditations.  Mighty 
poets,  like  Dante,  could  not  conceive  poetry,  unless 
based  on  it  and  saturated  with  it.  Creative  artists,  like 
Giotto,  found  it  an  ever  living  well-spring  of  pure 
beauty.  The  great  cathedrals  embodied  it  in  a  thousand 
forms  of  glory  and  power.  To  statesman,  artist,  poet, 
thinker,  teacher,  soldier,  worker,  chief,  or  follower,  it 
supplied  at  once  inspiration  and  instrument. 

This  unity  of  creed  had  existed,  it  is  true,  for  five  or 
six  centuries  in  large  parts  of  Europe,  and,  indeed,  in  a 
shape  even  more  uniform  and  intense.  But  not  till  the 
thirteenth  century  did  it  co-exist  with  such  acute 
intellectual  energy,  with  such  philosophic  power,  with 
such  a  free  and  superb  art,  with  such  sublime  poetry, 
with  so  much  industry,  culture,  wealth,  and  so  rich  a 
development  of  civic  organisation.  This  thirteenth 
century  was  the  last  in  the  history  of  mankind  in  Europe 
when  a  high  and  complex  civilisation  has  been  saturated 
with  a  uniform  and  unquestioned  creed.  As  we  all 
know,  since  then,  civilisation  has  had  to  advance  with 
ever-increasing  multiplicity  of  creeds.  What  impresses 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      153 

us  as  the  keynote  of  that  century  is  the  harmony  of 
power  it  displays.  As  in  the  Augustan  age,  or  the 
Periclean  age,  or  the  Homeric  age,  indeed,  far  more  than 
in  any  of  them,  men  might  fairly  dream,  in  the  age  of 
Innocent  and  St.  Louis,  that  they  had  reached  a  normal 
state,  when  human  life  might  hope  to  see  an  ultimate 
symmetry  of  existence.  There  have  been  since  epochs 
of  singular  intellectual  expansion,  of  creative  art,  of 
material  progress,  of  moral  earnestness,  of  practical 
energy.  Our  nineteenth  century  has  very  much  of  all 
of  these  in  varying  proportions.  But  we  have  long 
ceased  to  expect  that  they  will  not  clash  with  each 
other ;  we  have  abandoned  hope  of  ever  seeing  them 
work  in  organic  harmony  together. 

Now  the  thirteenth  century  was  an  era  of  no  one 
special  character.  It  was  in  nothing  one-sided,  and  in 
nothing  discordant.  It  had  great  thinkers,  great  rulers, 
great  teachers,  great  poets,  great  artists,  great  moralists, 
and  great  workers.  It  could  not  be  called  the  material 
age,  the  devotional  age,  the  political  age,  or  the  poetic 
age,  in  any  special  degree.  It  was  equally  poetic, 
political,  industrial,  artistic,  practical,  intellectual,  and 
devotional.  And  these  qualities  acted  in  harmony  on  a 
uniform  conception  of  life,  with  a  real  symmetry  of  pur- 
pose. There  was  one  common  creed,  one  ritual,  one 
worship,  one  sacred  language,  one  Church,  a  single  code 
of  manners,  a  uniform  scheme  of  society,  a  common 
system  of  education,  an  accepted  type  of  beauty,  a 
universal  art,  something  like  a  recognised  standard  of 
the  Good,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  True.  One  half  of  the 
world  was  not  occupied  in  ridiculing  or  combating  what 
the  other  half  was  doing.  Nor  were  men  absorbed  in 
ideals  of  their  own,  whilst  treating  the  ideals  of  their 
neighbours  as  matters  of  indifference  and  waste  of  power. 


154  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

Men  as  utterly  different  from  each  other  as  were  Stephen 
Langton,  St.  Francis,  Thomas  Aquinas,  Roger  Bacon, 
Dante,  Giotto,  St.  Louis,  Edward  I. — all  profoundly 
accepted  one  common  order  of  ideas,  equally  applying  to 
things  of  the  intellect,  of  moral  duty,  of  action,  and  of  the 
soul — to  public  and  private  life  at  once — and  they  could 
all  feel  that  they  were  together  working  out  the  same 
task.  It  may  be  doubted  if  that  has  ever  happened  in 
Europe  since. 

To  point  out  the  peculiar  character  of  an  age  is  not  to 
praise  it  without  reserve :  much  less  to  ask  men  to 
return  to  it  now.  No  one  can  now  be  suspected  of 
sighing  for  the  time  of  Innocent  III.,  of  St.  Francis  and 
St.  Louis  ;  nor  do  reasonable  historians  deny  that  their 
simple  beliefs  and  ideas  are  frankly  incompatible  with 
all  that  to-day  we  call  freedom,  science,  and  progress. 
Let  us  be  neither  reactionary,  nor  obscurantist,  neither 
Catholic  nor  absolutist  in  sympathy,  but  seek  only  to 
understand  an  age  in  its  own  spirit,  and  from  the  field  of 
its  own  ideas.  Nor  need  we  forget  how  the  uniform 
creed  of  Christendom  was  shaken,  even  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  by  fierce  spasms  which  ended  too  often  in  blood 
and  horror.  Their  social  system  certainly  was  not  with- 
out struggles  ;  for  the  thirteenth  century  was  no  golden 
era,  nor  did  the  lion  lie  down  with  the  lamb  or  consent 
to  be  led  by  a  little  child.  We  cannot  forget  either 
Albigensian  War  or  Runnymede,  nor  our  Barons'  War, 
nor  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines,  nor  the  history  of  Frede- 
rick II.,  Manfred,  and  Conradino,  nor  the  fall  of  Boniface, 
nor  the  Sicilian  Vespers.  And  yet  we  may  confidently 
maintain  that  there  was  a  real  coherence  of  belief, 
sentiment,  manners,  and  life  in  the  thirteenth  century. 

Perhaps  we  ought  rather  to  say,  in  its  earlier  genera- 
tions and  for  the  great  mass  of  its  people  and  doings. 


A   SURVEY  OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      155 

For  we  may  see  the  seed  of  divergences,  heresies,  insur- 
rections, civil  war,  anarchy,  discord,  doubt,  and  rebellion 
in  Church,  State,  society,  and  habits,  gathering  up  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  especially  definite  in  its  stormy 
and  ominous  close.  In  Roger  Bacon,  even  in  Aquinas, 
nay,  in  Dante,  there  lie  all  the  germs  of  the  intellectual 
dilemmas  which  shook  Catholicism  to  its  foundations. 
Francis  and  Dominic,  if  they  gave  the  Church  a  magni- 
ficent rally,  saved  her  by  remedies  which  a  cool  judg- 
ment must  pronounce  to  be  suicidal.  Our  Edward  I.,  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  had  to  deal  with  the  same 
rebellious  forces  which  made  the  reign  of  our  Henry 
VI.,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  a  record  of  blood  and 
anarchy.  Boniface,  Philip  the  Fair,  even  Edward  I., 
did  violent  things  in  the  thirteenth  century,  which 
Churchmen  and  princes  after  them  hardly  exceeded. 
And  there  are  profanities  and  ribaldries  in  the  thir- 
teenth-century poetry  which  Rabelais,  Voltaire,  and 
Diderot  have  not  surpassed.  But  in  judging  an  epoch 
one  has  to  weigh  how  far  those  things  were  common  and 
characteristic  of  it,  how  far  they  deeply  and  widely 
affected  it.  Judged  by  these  tests,  we  must  say  that 
scepticism,  anarchy,  ribaldry,  and  hypocrisy,  however 
latent  in  the  thirteenth  century,  had  not  yet  eaten  out 
its  soul. 

It  may  surprise  some  readers  to  treat  the  thirteenth 
century  as  the  virtual  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  an 
epoch  which  is  usually  placed  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  in  the  age  of  Louis  XL,  Henry  VII., 
and  Ferdinand  of  Arragon.  But  the  true  spirit  of 
Feudalism,  the  living  soul  of  Catholicism,  which  together 
make  up  the  compound  type  of  society  we  call  medi- 
aeval, were,  in  point  of  fact,  waning  all  through  the 
thirteenth  century.  The  hurly-burly  of  the  fourteenth 


156  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

and  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  centuries  was  merely 
one  long  and  cruel  death  agony.  Nay,  the  inner  soul  of 
Catholic  Feudalism  quite  ended  in  the  first  generation 
of  the  thirteenth  century — with  St.  Dominic,  St. 
Francis,  Innocent  HI.,  Philip  Augustus,  and  Otto  IV., 
Stephen  Langton,  and  William,  Earl  Mareschal.  The 
truly  characteristic  period  of  mediaevalism  is  in  the 
twelfth,  rather  than  the  thirteenth,  century,  the  period 
covered  by  the  first  three  Crusades  from  1094,  the  date 
of  the  Council  of  Clermont,  to  1 192,  when  Cceur-de- 
Lion  withdrew  from  the  Holy  Land.  Or,  if  we  put  it  a 
little  wider  in  limits,  we  may  date  true  medievalism 
from  the  rise  of  Hildebrand  about  1070  to  the  death  of 
Innocent  III.  in  1216,  or  just  about  a  century  and  a 
half.  St.  Louis  himself,  as  we  read  Joinville's  Memoirs, 
seems  to  us  a  man  belated,  born  too  late,  and  almost 
an  anachronism  in  the  second  half  of  the  thirteenth 
century. 

We  know  that  in  the  slow  evolution  of  society  the 
social  brilliancy  of  a  movement  is  seldom  visible,  and  is 
almost  never  ripe  for  poetic  and  artistic  idealisation 
until  the  energy  of  the  movement  itself  is  waning,  or 
even  it  may  be,  is  demonstrably  spent.  Shakespeare 
prolonged  the  Renascence  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
Renascence  of  Leonardo  and  Raphael,  into  the  seven- 
teenth century,  when  Puritanism  was  in  full  career ; 
and  Shakespeare — it  is  deeply  significant — died  on  the 
day  when  Oliver  Cromwell  entered  college  at  Cam- 
bridge. And  so,  when  Dante,  in  his  Vision  of  1 300,  saw 
the  heights  and  the  depths  of  Catholic  Feudalism,  he 
was  looking  back  over  great  movements  which  were 
mighty  forces  a  hundred  years  earlier.  Just  so,  though 
the  thirteenth  century  contained  within  its  bosom  the 
plainest  proofs  that  the  mediaeval  world  was  ending,  the 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      157 

flower,  the  brilliancy,  the  variety,  the  poetry,  the  soul  of 
the  mediaeval  world  were  never  seen  in  so  rich  a  glow  as 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  its  last  great  effort. 

In  a  brief  review  of  each  of  the  dominant  movements 
which  give  so  profound  a  character  to  the  thirteenth 
century  as  a  whole,  one  begins  naturally  with  the 
central  movement  of  all — the  Church.  The  thirteenth 
century  was  the  era  of  the  culmination,  the  over-strain- 
ing, and  then  the  shameful  defeat  of  the  claim  made  by 
the  Church  of  Rome  to  a  moral  and  spiritual  autocracy 
in  Christendom.  There  are  at  least  five  Popes  in  that 
one  hundred  years  —  Innocent  III.,  Gregory  IX., 
Innocent  IV.,  Gregory  X.,  and  Boniface  VIII. — whose 
characters  impress  us  with  a  sense  of  power  or  of 
astounding  desire  of  power,  whose  lives  are  romances 
and  dreams,  and  whose  careers  are  amongst  the  most 
instructive  in  history.  He  who  would  understand  the 
Middle  Ages  must  study  from  beginning  to  end  the  long 
and  crowded  Pontificate  of  Innocent  III.  In  genius,  in 
commanding  nature,  in  intensity  of  character,  in  univer- 
sal energy,  in  aspiring  designs,  Innocent  III.  has  few 
rivals  in  the  fourteen  centuries  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs, 
and  few  superiors  in  any  age  on  any  throne  in  the 
world.  His  eighteen  years  of  rule,  from  1198  to  1216, 
were  one  long  effort,  for  the  moment  successful,  and  in 
part  deserving  success,  to  enforce  on  the  kings  and 
peoples  of  Europe  a  higher  morality,  respect  for  the 
spiritual  mission  of  the  Church,  and  a  sense  of  their 
common  civilisation.  We  feel  that  he  is  truly  a  great 
man  with  a  noble  cause,  when  the  Pope  forces  Philip 
Augustus  to  take  back  the  wife  he  had  so  insolently 
cast  off,  when  the  Pope  forces  John  to  respect  the  rights 
of  all  his  subjects,  laymen  or  churchmen,  when  the  Pope 
gives  to  England  the  best  of  her  Primates,  Stephen 


158  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

Langton,  the  principal  author  of  our  Great  Charter, 
when  the  Pope  accepts  the  potent  enthusiasm  of  the 
New  Friars  and  sends  them  forth  on  their  mission  of 
revivalism. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  on  one  of  the  most  diffi- 
cult problems  in  history  to  decide  how  far  the  develop- 
ment and  organisation  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the 
Middle  Ages  were  worth  the  price  that  civilisation  paid 
in  moral,  intellectual,  and  in  material  loss.  Still  less 
can  we  attempt  to  justify  such  Crusades  as  that  which 
established  the  Latin  kingdom  in  Constantinople,  or 
the  Crusade  to  crush  the  revolt  of  the  Albigensian 
heretics,  and  all  the  enormous  assumptions  of  Innocent 
in  things  temporal  and  things  spiritual.  But  before  we 
decide  that  in  the  thirteenth  century  civilisation  would 
have  been  the  gainer,  if  there  had  been  no  central  Church 
at  all,  let  us  count  up  all  the  great  brains  of  the  time, 
with  Aquinas  and  Dante  at  their  head,  all  the  great 
statesmen,  St.  Louis,  Blanche  of  Castile,  in  France ; 
Simon  de  Montfort  and  Edward  I.,  in  England,  and 
Ferdinand  III.,  in  Spain  ;  Frederic  II.  and  Rudolph  of 
Hapsburg,  in  the  Empire, — who  might  in  affairs  of  state 
often  oppose  Churchmen,  but  who  felt  that  society  itself 
reposed  on  a  well-ordered  Church. 

If  the  great  attempt  failed  in  the  hands  of  Innocent 
III.,  surely  one  of  the  finest  brains  and  noblest  natures 
that  Rome  ever  sent  forth — and  fail  it  did  on  the  whole, 
except  as  a  temporary  expedient — it  could  not  succeed 
with  smaller  men,  when  every  generation  made  the 
conditions  of  success  more  hopeless.  The  superhuman 
pride  of  Gregory  IX.,  the  venerable  pontiff  who  for 
fourteen  years  defied  the  whole  strength  of  the  Emperor 
Frederick  II.,  seems  to  us  to-day,  in  spite  of  his  lofty 
spirit,  but  to  parody  that  of  Hildebrand,  of  Alexander 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      159 

III.,  and  Innocent  III.  And  when  we  come  to  Inno- 
cent IV.  (1243-1264),  the  disturber  of  the  peace  of  the 
Empire,  he  is  almost  a  forecast  of  Boniface  VIII.  And 
Boniface  himself  (1294-1303),  though  his  words  were 
more  haughty  than  those  of  the  mightiest  of  his  pre- 
decessors, though  insatiable  ambition  and  audacious 
intrigue  gave  him  some  moments  of  triumph,  ended 
after  nine  years  of  desperate  struggle  in  what  the  poet 
calls  '  the  mockery,  the  vinegar,  the  gall  of  a  new  cruci- 
fixion of  the  Vicar  of  Christ.'  Read  Dante,  and  see  all 
that  a  great  spirit  in  the  Middle  Ages  could  still  hope 
from  the  Church  and  its  chiefs — all  that  made  such 
dreams  a  mockery  and  a  delusion. 

When  Dante  wrote,  the  Popes  were  already  settled  at 
Avignon  and  the  Church  had  entered  upon  one  of  its 
worst  eras.  And  as  we  follow  his  scathing  indignation, 
in  the  nineteenth  canto  of  the  Inferno,  or  in  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  the  Paradiso,  we  feel  how  utterly  the  vision 
of  Peter  had  failed  to  be  realised  on  earth.  But  for  one 
hundred  years  before,  all  through  the  thirteenth  century, 
the  writing  on  the  wall  may  now  be  read,  in  letters  of 
fire.  When  Saladin  forced  the  allied  kings  of  Europe 
to  abandon  the  conquest  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and 
Lion-hearted  Richard  turned  back  in  despair  (1192), 
the  Crusades,  as  military  movements,  ended.  The  later 
Crusades  of  the  thirteenth  century  were  splendid  acts  of 
folly,  of  anachronism,  even  crime.  They  were  '  magni- 
ficent, but  not  war' — in  any  rational  sense.  It  was 
Europe  that  had  to  be  protected  against  the  Moslem — 
not  Asia  or  Africa  that  was  to  be  conquered.  All 
through  the  thirteenth  century  European  civilisation 
was  enjoying  the  vast  material  and  intellectual  results 
of  the  Crusades  of  the  twelfth  century.  But  to  sail  for 
Jerusalem,  Egypt,  or  Tunis,  had  then  become,  as  the 


l6o  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

wise  Joinville  told  St.  Louis,  a  cruel  neglect  of  duty  at 
home. 

It  was  not  merely  in  the  exhaustion  of  the  Crusading 
zeal  that  the  waning  of  the  Catholic  fervour  was  shown. 
In  the  twelfth  century  there  had  been  learned  or  in- 
genious heretics.  But  the  mark  of  the  thirteenth 
century  is  the  rise  of  heretic  sects,  schismatic  churches, 
religious  reformations,  spreading  deep  down  amongst 
the  roots  of  the  people.  We  have  the  three  distinct 
religious  movements  which  began  to  sap  the  orthodox 
citadel,  and  which  afterwards  took  such  vast  proportions 
— Puritanism,  Mysticism,  Scepticism.  All  of  them  take 
form  in  the  thirteenth  century — Waldenses,  Albigenses, 
Petrobussians,  Poor  Men,  Anti-Ritualists,  Anti-Sacer- 
dotalists,  Manichaeans,  Gospel  Christians,  Ouietists, 
Flagellants,  Pastoureaux,  fanatics  of  all  orders.  All 
through  the  thirteenth  century  we  have  an  intense  fer- 
ment of  the  religious  exaltation,  culminating  in  the 
orthodox  mysticism,  the  rivalries,  the  missions,  the  re- 
vivalism, of  the  new  allies  of  the  Church,  the  Franciscans 
and  Dominicans,  the  Friars,  or  Mendicant  Orders. 

The  thirteenth  century  saw  the  romantic  rise,  the 
marvellous  growth,  and  then  the  inevitable  decay  of  the 
Friars,  the  two  orders  whose  careers  form  one  of  the 
most  fascinating  and  impressive  stories  in  modern 
history.  The  Franciscans,  or  Grey  Friars,  founded  in 
121 2,  the  Dominicans,  or  Black  Friars,  founded  in  1216, 
by  the  middle  of  the  century  had  infused  new  life 
throughout  the  Catholic  world.  By  the  end  of  the 
century  their  power  was  spent,  and  they  had  begun  to 
be  absorbed  in  the  general  life  of  the  Church.  It  was 
one  of  the  great  rallies  of  the  Papal  Church,  perhaps  of 
all  the  rallies  the  most  important,  certainly  the  most 
brilliant,  most  pathetic,  most  fascinating,  the  most  rich 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      l6l 

in  poetry,  in  art,  in  devotion.  For  the  mediaeval  Church 
of  Rome,  like  the  Empire  of  the  Caesars  at  Rome,  like 
the  Eastern  Empire  of  Constantinople,  like  the  Empire 
of  the  Khali fs,  which  succeeded  that,  seems  to  subsist 
for  centuries  after  its  epoch  of  zenith  by  a  long  series 
of  rallies,  revivals,  and  new  births  out  of  almost  hopeless 
disorganisation  and  decay. 

But  the  thirteenth  century  is  not  less  memorable  for 
its  political  than  for  its  spiritual  history.  And  in  this 
field  the  history  is  that  of  new  organisations,  not  the 
dissolution  of  the  old.  The  thirteenth  century  gave 
Europe  the  nations  as  we  now  know  them.  France, 
England,  Spain,  large  parts  of  North  and  South  Ger- 
many, became  nations,  where  they  were  previously 
counties,  duchies,  and  fiefs.  Compare  the  map  of 
Europe  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  when  Philip 
Augustus  was  struggling  with  Richard  L,  when  the 
King  of  England  was  a  more  powerful  ruler  in  France 
than  the  so-called  King  of  France  in  Paris,  when  Spain 
was  held  by  various  groups  of  petty  kinglets  facing  the 
solid  power  of  the  Moors,  compare  this  with  the  map  of 
Europe  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  with  Spain 
constituted  a  kingdom  under  Ferdinand  III.  and  Alfonso 
X.,  France  under  Philip  the  Fair,  and  England  under 
Edward  I. 

At  the  very  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century  John 
did  England  the  inestimable  service  of  losing  her  French 
possessions.  At  the  close  of  the  century  the  greatest 
of  the  Plantagenets  finally  annexed  Wales  to  England 
and  began  the  incorporation  of  Scotland  and  Ireland. 
Of  the  creators  of  England  as  a  sovereign  power  in  the 
world,  from  Alfred  to  Chatham,  between  the  names  of 
the  Conqueror  and  Cromwell,  assuredly  that  of  Edward 
I.  is  the  most  important  As  to  France,  the  petty 

L 


162  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

counties  which  Philip  Augustus  inherited  in  1180  had 
become,  in  the  days  of  Philip  the  Fair  (1286-1314),  the 
most  powerful  nation  in  Europe.  As  a  great  European 
force,  the  French  nation  dates  from  the  age  of  Philip 
Augustus,  Blanche  of  Castile,  her  son  Louis  IX.  (the 
Saint),  and  the  two  Philips  (ill.  and  IV.),  the  son  and 
grandson  of  St.  Louis.  The  monarchy  of  France  was 
indeed  created  in  the  thirteenth  century.  All  that  went 
before  was  preparation :  all  that  came  afterwards  was 
development.  Almost  as  much  may  be  said  for  England 
and  for  Spain. 

It  was  an  age  of  great  rulers.  Indeed,  we  may  doubt 
if  any  hundred  years  of  European  history  has  been  so 
crowded  with  great  statesmen  and  kings.  In  England, 
Stephen  Langton  and  the  authors  of  our  Great  Charter 
in  1215  ;  William,  Earl  Mareschal,  Simon  de  Montfort, 
Earl  of  Leicester,  and  above  all  Edward  I.,  great  as 
soldier,  as  ruler,  as  legislator — as  great  when  he  yielded 
as  when  he  compelled.  In  France,  Philip  Augustus,  a 
king  curiously  like  our  Edward  I.  in  his  virtues  as  in 
his  faults,  though  earlier  by  three  generations  ;  Blanche, 
his  son's  wife,  Regent  of  France ;  St.  Louis,  her  son  ; 
and  St.  Louis'  grandson,  the  terrible,  fierce,  subtle,  and 
adroit  Philip  the  Fair.  Then  on  the  throne  of  the 
Empire,  from  1220  to  1250,  Frederick  II., 'the  world's 
wonder,'  one  of  the  most  brilliant  characters  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  whose  life  is  a  long  romance,  whose  many- 
sided  endowments  seemed  to  promise  everything  but 
real  greatness  and  abiding  results.  Next,  after  a  genera- 
tion, his  successor,  less  brilliant  but  far  more  truly 
great,  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  emperor  from  1273  to  1291, 
the  founder  of  the  Austrian  dynasty,  the  ancestor  of  its 
sovereigns,  the  parallel,  I  had  almost  said  the  equal,  of 
our  own  Edward  I.  In  Spain,  Ferdinand  III.  and  his 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      163 

son,  Alfonso  X.,  whose  reigns  united  gave  Spain  peace 
and  prosperity  for  fifty-four  years  (1230-1284). 

How  comes  it  that  in  this  epoch  lands  so  different  as 
Italy,  Spain,  France,  England,  and  Germany,  produce 
rulers  who,  in  all  essentials  as  statesmen,  are  so  closely 
parallel  in  act,  whilst  widely  different  in  character? 
Frederick  II.,  in  nature,  seems  the  antithesis  of  St.  Louis, 
so  does  Philip  Augustus  of  Ferdinand  III.,  our  cultured 
Edward  I.  of  his  martial  contemporary,  Rudolph  of 
Hapsburg.  Yet  these  men,  differing  so  entirely  in 
nature  and  in  gifts,  ruling  men  so  different  as  those  of 
Sicily  and  Austria,  Castile  and  England,  all  exercise  the 
same  functions  in  the  same  way :  all  are  great  generals, 
administrators,  legislators,  statesmen,  founders  of  nations, 
authors  of  constitutions,  supporters  of  the  Church,  pro- 
moters of  learning.  Clearly  it  is  that  their  time  is  the 
golden  age  of  kings,  an  age  when  the  social  conditions 
forced  forth  all  the  manhood  and  the  genius  of  the  born 
ruler ;  when  the  ruled  were  by  habit,  religion,  and  by 
necessity  eager  to  welcome  the  great  king  and  cheerfully 
helped  him  in  his  "task.  Of  them  all,  St.  Louis  is 
certainly  the  most  beautiful  nature,  Frederick  II.  the 
most  interesting  personality,  our  Simon  de  Montfort 
the  most  genuine  patriot,  our  own  Edward  I.  the  most 
creative  mind,  and  he  and  Philip  Augustus  the  kings 
whose  work  was  the  most  pregnant  with  permanent 
results  ;  but  we  may  find  in  a  much  ruder  nature,  in 
Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  the  simple,  unwearied,  warrior 
chief,  who  finally  turned  the  German  kings  from  Italy  to 
the  North,  who  never  quarrelled  with  the  Church,  who  so 
sternly  asserted  the  arm  of  law,  and  whose  whole  life 
was  an  unbroken  series  of  well-won  triumphs — the  most 
truly  typical  king  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Frederick 
II.  and  Edward  I.  are  really  in  advance  of  their  age  ; 


164  THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

and  St.  Louis  and  Ferdinand  ill.  are  saints  and  church- 
men more  than  kings. 

Together  with  the  kings  must  be  kept  always  in  view 
the  base  on  which  the  power  of  the  kings  was  founded 
— the  growing  greatness  of  the  towns.  There  were  two 
allied  forces  which  divided  the  inheritance  of  Feudalism 
— the  monarchs  on  the  one  hand,  the  burghers  on  the 
other.  The  thirteenth  century  is  eminently  the  era  of 
the  foundation  of  the  great  towns  north  of  the  Alps. 
In  France,  in  Spain,  in  England,  in  Burgundy,  in 
Flanders,  and  even  we  may  say  in  Germany,  the  princes 
never  became  strong  but  by  alliance  with  the  wealth, 
the  intelligence,  the  energy,  of  the  cities.  To  the  burghers 
the  kings  represented  civilisation,  internal  peace,  good 
government :  to  the  kings  the  towns  represented  the 
sinews  of  war,  the  material  and  intellectual  sources  of 
their  splendour,  of  their  armies,  their  civil  organisation. 
Hence,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  there  grew  in  greatness, 
side  by  side  and  in  friendly  alliance,  the  two  powers 
which,  in  later  centuries,  have  fought  out  such  obstinate 
battles — the  monarchies  and  the  people.  And  out  of  this 
alliance,  at  once  its  condition  and  its  instrument,  there 
grew  up  Cortes,  Diets,  States -General,  Parliaments, 
Charters,  constitutional  laws,  codes,  and  ordinances. 

It  is  true  that  in  Italy,  Spain,  Provence,  and  Langue- 
doc,  we  find  rich  trading  towns  as  early  as  the  First 
Crusade,  but  it  was  not  until  the  thirteenth  century  that 
we  can  call  any  northern  city  an  independent  power, 
with  a  large,  wealthy,  and  proud  population,  a  muni- 
cipal life  of  its  own,  and  a  widely  extended  commerce. 
By  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  Europe  is  covered 
with  such  towns — Paris,  London,  Strassburg,  Cologne, 
Ghent,  Rouen,  Bordeaux,  in  the  first  line,  the  great 
wool  cities  of  East  England,  the  ports  of  the  South  and 


A   SURVEY  OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY       165 

West,  the  great  river  cities  of  France  along  the  Loire, 
the  Rhone,  the  Garonne,  the  Seine,  the  rich,  artistic, 
laborious,  and  crowded  cities  of  Flanders,  the  rich  and 
powerful  cities  on  the  Rhine  from  Basle  down  to  Arn- 
heim,  the  cities  of  the  Danube,  the  Elbe,  and  the  Baltic. 
This  is  the  age  of  the  great  confederation  of  the  Rhine, 
and  the  rise  of  the  Hanseatic  League  ;  for  in  Germany 
and  in  Flanders,  where  the  towns  could  not  count  on 
the  protection  of  a  friendly  and  central  monarchy,  the 
towns  formed  mutual  leagues  for  protection  and  support 
amongst  themselves.  It  would  need  a  volume  to  work 
out  this  complex  development.  But  we  may  take  it 
that,  for  Northern  Europe,  the  thirteenth  century  is 
the  era  of  the  definite  establishment  of  rich,  free,  self- 
governing  municipalities.  It  is  the  flourishing  era  of 
town  charters,  of  city  leagues,  and  of  the  systematic 
establishment  of  a  European  commerce,  north  of  the 
Mediterranean,  both  inter-provincial  and  inter-national. 
And  out  of  these  rich  and  teeming  cities  arose  that 
social  power  destined  to  such  a  striking  career  in  the 
next  six  centuries — the  middle  class,  a  new  order  in  the 
State,  whose  importance  rests  on  wealth,  intelligence, 
and  organisation,  not  on  birth  or  on  arms.  And  out  of 
that  middle  class  rose  popular  representation,  election 
by  the  commons,  i.e.,  by  communes,  or  corporate  con- 
stituencies, the  third  estate.  The  history  of  popular 
representation  in  Europe  would  occupy  a  volume,  or 
many  volumes :  its  conception,  birth,  and  youth,  fall 
within  the  thirteenth  century. 

The  Great  Charter,  which  the  barons,  as  real  repre- 
sentatives of  the  whole  nation,  wrested  from  John  in 
1215,  did  not,  it  is  true,  contain  any  scheme  of  popular 
representation  ;  but  it  asserted  the  principle,  and  it  laid 
down  canons  of  public  law  which  led  directly  to  popular 


l66  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

representation  and  a  parliamentary  constitution.  The 
Great  Charter  has  been  talked  about  for  many  centuries 
in  vague  superlatives  of  praise,  by  those  who  had  little 
precise  or  accurate  knowledge  of  it.  But  now  that  our 
knowledge  of  it  is  full  and  exact,  we  see  that  its  import- 
ance was  in  no  way  exaggerated,  and  perhaps  was  hardly 
understood  ;  and  we  find  it  hard  adequately  to  express 
our  admiration  of  its  wise,  just,  and  momentous  policy. 
The  Great  Charter  of  1215  led  in  a  direct  line  to  the 
complete  and  developed  Parliament  of  1295.  And 
Bishop  Stubbs  has  well  named  the  interval  between  the 
two,  the  eighty  years  of  struggle  for  a  political  consti- 
tution. The  Charter  of  John  contains  the  principle  of 
taxation  through  the  common  council  of  the  realm. 
From  the  very  first  year  after  it  representative  councils 
appear;  first  from  counties;  then,  in  1254,  we  have  a 
regular  Parliament  from  shires  ;  in  1264,  after  the  battle 
of  Lewes,  Simon  de  Montfort,  Earl  of  Leicester,  sum- 
moned two  discreet  representatives  from  towns  and 
cities  by  writ ;  in  1273,  Edward  I.  summoned  what  was 
in  effect  a  Parliament ;  and,  after  several  Parliaments 
summoned  in  intervening  years,  we  have  the  first  com- 
plete and  finally  constituted  Parliament  in  1295. 

But  our  own,  the  greatest  and  most  permanent  of 
Parliaments,  was  by  no  means  the  earliest.  Represen- 
tatives of  cities  and  boroughs  had  come  to  the  Cortes 
of  Castile  and  of  Arragon  in  the  twelfth  century  ;  early 
in  the  thirteenth  century  Frederick  II.  summoned  them 
to  general  courts  in  Sicily  ;  in  the  middle  of  the  century 
the  towns  sent  deputies  to  the  German  Diets ;  in  1277, 
the  commons  and  towns  swear  fealty  to  Rudolph  of 
Hapsburg ;  in  1291  was  founded  in  the  mountains  of 
Schwytz  that  Swiss  confederation  which  has  just  cele- 
brated its  6ooth  anniversary ;  and,  in  1 302,  Philip  the 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      167 

Fair  summoned  the  States-General  to  back  him  in  his 
desperate  duel  with  Boniface  vm.  Thus,  seven  years 
after  Edward  I.  had  called  to  Westminster  that  first 
true  Parliament  which  has  had  there  so  great  a  history 
over  600  years,  Philip  called  together  to  Notre  Dame 
at  Paris  the  three  estates — the  clergy,  the  baronage,  and 
the  commons.  So  clear  is  it  that  the  thirteenth  century 
called  into  being  that  momentous  element  of  modern 
civilisation,  the  representation  of  the  people  in  Parlia- 
ment. 

Side  by  side  with  Parliaments  there  grew  up  the 
power  of  the  law  courts  :  along  with  constitutions,  civil 
jurisprudence.  Our  Edward  I.  is  often  called,  and 
called  truly,  the  English  Justinian.  The  authority  of 
the  decisions  of  the  courts,  the  development  of  law  by 
direct  legislation — i.e.,  case-law  as  we  know  it,  legisla- 
tive amendment  of  the  law  as  we  know  it — first  begin 
with  the  reign  of  Edward  I.  From  that  date  to  this' 
hour  we  have  an  unbroken  sequence  of  development  in 
our  judicial,  as  much  as  in  our  parliamentary,  history. 
An  even  more  momentous  transformation  of  law  took 
place  throughout  France.  There  the  kings  created  the 
powerful  order  of  the  jurists,  and  ruled  at  home  and 
abroad  through  them.  In  the  legislation  of  Philip 
Augustus,  the  translation  under  him  of  the  Corpus  Juris 
into  French,  the  famous  Etablissements  of  St.  Louis,  at 
the  middle  of  the  century,  the  growing  importance  of 
the  Parlements,  or  judicial  councils,  under  Philip  the 
Fair  at  the  end  of  the  century,  we  have  the  first  resur- 
rection of  the  Roman  civil  law  to  fight  out  its  long  con- 
test with  the  feudal  law,  which  has  led  to  its  ultimate 
supremacy  in  the  Civil  Code  of  our  day. 

These,  however,  are  but  the  external  facts  forming 
the  framework  within  which  the  moral  and  intellectual 


1 68  THE   MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

ferment  of  the  thirteenth  century  moved  and  worked  ; 
and  in  grouping  in  a  few  paragraphs  the  well-known 
outlines  of  the  political  events  of  that  age  we  are  merely 
tracing  the  skeleton  of  the  living  forces  of  the  time.  In 
many  ways  the  thirteenth  century  created  by  anticipa- 
tion much  of  the  Renascence  that  we  associate  with  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  It  was  a  revival  or 
new  era,  deeper,  purer,  more  constructive  than  the  latter 
movement,  which  we  commonly  speak  of  as  Renaissance. 
This  superfluous  Gallicism  is  a  term  which  we  should 
do  well  to  drop  ;  for  it  suggests  a  national  character  to 
a  European  movement ;  it  implies  a  new  birth,  in  the 
spirit  of  mendacious  vanity,  so  characteristic  of  the  age 
of  Cellinis  and  Aretinos  ;  and  it  expresses  the  negative 
side  of  what  was  largely  a  mere  evolution  of  the  past. 
As  a  creative  movement,  the  profound  uprising  of 
intellect  and  soul  concentrated  in  Dante  was  a  far 
nobler  and  more  potent  effort  than  any  form  of  classical 
revival.  The  movement  we  associate  with  the  epoch  of 
Leo  X.,  of  Francis  I.,  and  Charles  V.  was  only  one  of  the 
series  of  European  efforts  to  realise  a  more  complete 
type  of  moral  and  social  life ;  and  of  them  all  it  was 
the  one  most  deeply  tainted  with  the  spirit  of  vanity, 
of  impurity,  and  of  anarchy.  Of  all  the  epochs  of  effort 
after  a  new  life,  that  of  the  age  of  Aquinas,  Roger  Bacon, 
St.  Francis,  St.  Louis,  Giotto,  and  Dante  is  the  most 
purely  spiritual,  the  most  really  constructive,  and  indeed 
the  most  truly  philosophic. 

Between  the  epoch  of  Charlemagne  and  the  revolu- 
tionary reconstruction  of  the  present  century  we  may 
count  at  least  four  marked  periods  of  concerted  effort  in 
Western  Europe  to  found  a  broader  and  higher  type  of 
society.  European  civilisation  advances,  no  doubt,  in 
a  way  which  is  most  irregular,  and  yet  in  the  long  run 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      169 

continuous.  But  we  may  still  trace  very  distinct  periods 
of  special  activity  and  common  upheaval.  One  of  these 
periods  is  the  age  of  Hildebrand,  the  great  Norman 
chiefs,  Lanfranc,  Anselm,  and  the  first  Crusade.  The 
second  period  is  that  which  opens  with  Innocent  III. 
and  closes  with  Dante.  The  third  is  the  classical  revival 
from  Louis  XI.  to  Charles  V.  The  fourth  is  the  philo- 
sophic and  scientific  movement  of  the  age  of  Voltaire, 
Diderot,  and  Hume,  which  preceded  the  great  revolu- 
tionary wars.  The  first  two  movements,  in  the  golden 
age  of  Popes  and  Crusades,  were  sincere  attempts  to 
reform  society  on  a  Catholic  and  Feudal  basis.  They 
did  not  succeed,  but  they  were  both  inspired  with  great 
and  beautiful  ideals.  And  the  movement  of  the 
thirteenth  century  was  more  humane,  more  intellectual, 
more  artistic,  more  original,  and  more  poetic  than  that 
of  the  eleventh  century.  The  so-called  Renaissance,  or 
Humanistic  Revival,  was  a  time  of  extraordinary  bril- 
liancy and  energy  ;  but  it  was  avowedly  based  on  insur- 
rection and  destruction,  and  it  was  an  utterly  premature 
attempt  to  found  an  intellectual  humanism  without  either 
real  humanity  or  sound  scientific  knowledge.  And  the 
age  of  Voltaire,  though  it  had  both  humanity  and  science, 
was  even  more  destructive  in  its  aim  ;  for  it  erected 
negation  into  its  own  creed,  and  proposed  to  regenerate 
mankind  by  '  stamping  out  the  infamy '  (of  religion). 

It  follows  then  that,  if  we  are  to  select  any  special 
period  for  the  birth  of  a  regenerate  and  developed 
modern  society,  we  may  take  the  age  of  Dante,  1265- 
1321,  as  that  which  witnessed  the  mighty  transforma- 
tion from  a  world  which  still  trusted  in  the  faith  of  a 
Catholic  and  Feudal  constitution  of  society  to  a  world 
which  was  teeming  with  ideas  and  wants  incompatible 
with  Catholic  or  Feudal  systems  altogether.  The  whole 


170  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

thirteenth  century  was  crowded  with  creative  forces  in 
philosophy,  art,  poetry,  and  statesmanship  as  rich  as 
those  of  the  Humanist  Renaissance.  And  if  we  are 
accustomed  to  look  on  them  as  so  much  more  limited 
and  rude,  it  is  because  we  forget  how  very  few  and  poor 
were  their  resources  and  their  instruments.  In  creative 
genius,  Giotto  is  the  peer,  if  not  the  superior,  of  Raphael. 
Dante  had  all  the  qualities  of  his  three  chief  successors 
— and  very  much  more  besides.  It  is  a  tenable  view 
that,  in  pure  inventive  fertility  and  in  imaginative  range, 
those  vast  composite  creations — the  cathedrals  of  the 
thirteenth  century — in  all  their  wealth  of  architecture, 
statuary,  painted  glass,  enamels,  embroideries,  and  inex- 
haustible decorative  work,  may  be  set  beside  the  entire 
painting  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Albert  and  Aquinas, 
in  philosophic  range,  had  no  peer  until  we  come  down 
to  Descartes.  Nor  was  Roger  Bacon  surpassed  in 
versatile  audacity  of  genius  and  in  true  encyclopaedic 
grasp,  by  any  thinker  between  him  and  his  namesake, 
the  Chancellor.  In  statesmanship,  and  all  the  qualities 
of  the  born  leader  of  men,  we  can  only  match  the  great 
chiefs  of  the  thirteenth  century  by  comparing  them  with 
the  greatest  names  three  or  even  four  centuries  later. 

The  thirteenth  century  was  indeed  an  abortive  revival. 
It  was  a  failure :  but  a  splendid  failure.  Men  as  great 
as  any  the  world  has  known  in  thought,  in  art,  in  action, 
profoundly  believed  that  society  could  be  permanently 
organised  on  Catholic  and  Feudal  lines.  It  was  an 
illusion ;  but  it  was  neither  an  unworthy  nor  an  inex- 
cusable illusion  ;  for  there  were  great  resources,  both  in 
Catholic  and  in  Feudal  powers.  And  it  was  not  pos- 
sible for  the  greatest  minds,  after  the  thousand  years  of 
interval  which  had  covered  Europe  since  the  age  of  the 
Antonines,  to  understand  how  vast  were  the  defects  of 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      17 1 

their  own  age  in  knowledge,  in  the  arts  of  life,  and  in 
social  organisation.  They  had  no  ancient  world,  or 
what  we  call  to-day,  the  Revival  of  Learning  ;  they  had 
no  real  science ;  and  even  the  ordinary  commonplaces 
of  every  Greek  and  Roman  were  to  them  a  profound 
mystery.  What  was  even  worse,  they  did  not  know 
how  much  they  needed  to  know  :  they  had  no  measure 
of  their  own  ignorance.  And  thus  even  intellects  like 
those  of  Albert,  Aquinas,  and  Dante  could  still  dream 
of  a  final  co-ordination  of  human  knowledge  on  the 
lines  of  some  subjective  recasting  of  the  Catholic 
verities.  And  they  naturally  imagined  that,  after  all, 
society  could  be  saved  by  some  regeneration  of  the 
Church — though  we  now  see  that  this  was  far  less 
possible  than  to  expect  Pope  Boniface  eventually  to 
turn  out  a  saint,  like  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  or  Francis 
of  Assisi. 

And  just  as  the  men  of  intellect  still  believed  that  it 
was  possible  to  recast  the  Catholic  scheme,  so  men  of 
action  still  believed  it  possible  to  govern  nations  on  the 
Feudal  scheme,  and  with  the  help  of  the  feudal  mag- 
nates. For  a  time,  all  through  the  thirteenth  century, 
men  of  very  noble  character  or  of  commanding  genius 
did  manage  to  govern  in  this  way,  by  the  help  first  of 
the  churchmen,  then  of  the  growing  townships,  and  by 
constantly  exhausting  their  own  barons  in  foreign  expe- 
ditions. Philip  Augustus,  Blanche,  St.  Louis,  and  Philip 
the  Fair,  held  their  own  by  a  combination  of  high 
qualities  and  fortunate  conditions.  In  England  the 
infamous  John  and  his  foolish  son  forced  the  feudal 
chiefs  to  become  statesmen  themselves.  Edward  I., 
Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  Albert  of  Austria,  Henry  of 
Luxemburg,  succeeded  in  marshalling  their  fierce 
baronial  squadrons.  But  it  could  only  be  done  by 


1/2  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

extraordinary  skill  and  fortune,  and  even  then  but  for 
a  short  time.  After  them,  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years,  Europe  was  delivered  over  to  an  orgie  of  feudal 
anarchy.  The  dreadful  Hundred  Years'  War  between 
France  and  England,  the  wars  of  succession,  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses,  the  dismemberment  of  France,  the  con- 
fusion of  Spain,  the  decadence  of  the  Empire  ensued. 

Thus  the  political  history  of  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries  is  a  record  of  bloodshed  and  anarchy, 
until  men  like  the  grim  Louis  XL,  Ferdinand  V.  and 
Charles  v.,  and  the  Tudors  in  England,  finally  succeeded 
in  mastering  Feudalism  by  the  aid  of  the  middle  classes 
and  middle-class  statesmen.  But,  as  neither  middle 
class  nor  middle-class  statesmen  existed  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  kings  were  forced  to  do  the  best  they 
could  with  their  feudal  resources.  What  they  did  was 
often  very  good,  and  sometimes  truly  wonderful.  It 
could  not  permanently  succeed  ;  but  its  very  failure  was 
a  grand  experiment.  And  thus,  whether  in  the  spiritual 
and  intellectual  world,  or  in  the  political  and  social 
world,  the  thirteenth  century — the  last  great  effort  of 
the  Middle  Ages — was  doomed  to  inevitable  disappoint- 
ment, because  the  preceding  thousand  years  of  history 
had  deprived  it  of  the  only  means  by  which  success  was 
possible. 

The  unmistakable  sign  that  the  real  force  of 
Catholicism  was  exhausted  may  be  read  in  the  transfer 
of  the  intellectual  leadership  from  the  monasteries  to 
the  schools,  from  the  churchmen  to  the  doctors.  And 
this  transfer  was  thoroughly  effected  in  the  thirteenth 
century.  In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  the 
spiritual  and  philosophic  guidance  of  mankind  was  in 
the  hands  of  true  monks.  Clugny,  Clairvaux,  St.  Denis, 
Bee,  Canterbury,  Merton,  Malmesbury,  Glastonbury,  and 


A   SURVEY  OF  THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      173 

Croyland,  sent  out  teachers  and  rulers.  St.  Bernard 
managed  to  silence  Abailard.  But  in  the  thirteenth 
century  it  is  not  the  monasteries  but  the  universities 
that  hold  up  the  torch.  Paris,  Oxford,  Montpellier, 
and  the  like,  were  wholly  secular  schools  ;  for,  though 
the  leading  doctors  and  professors  of  this  age  are  still 
nominally  churchmen,  and  even  monks,  their  whole 
moral  and  mental  attitude,  and  the  atmosphere  of  their 
schools,  are  strictly  secular,  and  not  monastic.  Within 
two  generations  the  Dominican  and  Franciscan  houses, 
founded  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  in  such  a  whirl- 
wind of  ecstatic  devotion,  became  celebrated  schools  of 
learning  and  secular  education,  so  that  Aquinas  has 
almost  as  little  of  the  missionary  passion  of  St.  Dominic 
as  Roger  Bacon  has  of  the  mystic  tenderness  of  St. 
Francis.  It  is  a  fact  of  deep  significance  that,  within  a 
generation  of  the  foundation  of  the  Mendicant  Orders, 
the  Descartes  and  the  Bacon  of  the  thirteenth  century 
were  both  on  the  roll  of  the  Friars.  So  rapidly  did 
mystic  theology  tend  to  develop  into  free  inquiry.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  anything  more  utterly  unlike  the 
saintly  ideal  of  monasticism  than  were  Paris  and  Oxford 
at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Its  whole  in- 
tellectual character  may  be  measured  by  the  light  of 
these  two  famous  seminaries  of  the  new  thought. 

It  was  the  great  age  of  the  schools  we  call  universities, 
for  though  those  of  Italy  belong  to  an  earlier  age,  the 
thirteenth  century  gave  full  stature  to  the  universities 
of  Paris,  and  of  Oxford,  of  Orleans,  Toulouse,  and 
Montpellier,  of  Cordova,  Seville,  and  Toledo.  That  of 
Paris  received  from  Philip  Augustus  in  1215  (the  year 
of  our  Great  Charter)  her  formal  constitution,  and  all 
through  the  thirteenth  century  her  '  nations '  of  twenty 
thousand  students  formed  the  main  intellectual  centre 


174  THE  MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

of  Europe.  The  University  of  Oxford  was  hardly 
second  to  that  of  Paris  ;  and  though  the  history  of  the 
Oxford  schools  is  in  its  origin  obscure,  and  even  local, 
in  the  thirteenth  century  we  can  trace  the  definite 
constitution  of  the  university  and  the  momentous  founda- 
tion of  the  colleges,  when  Walter  de  Merton,  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  I.,  gave  statutes  to  Merton  College. 
Thus  the  origin  of  our  great  English  university  is  almost 
exactly  coeval  with  the  origin  of  our  English  Parlia- 
ment. 

The  same  age  also  witnessed  the  revival  of  rational 
philosophy  after  its  long  sleep  of  a  thousand  years. 
Intellects  quite  as  powerful  as  those  of  the  Greek 
thinkers  took  up  the  task  of  constructing  a  harmony  of 
general  ideas  on  the  ground  where  it  had  been  left  by 
the  Alexandrine  successors  of  Aristotle  and  Plato. 
The  best  teachers  of  the  thirteenth  century  had  con- 
ceptions and  aims  very  far  broader  and  more  real  than 
those  of  Abailard,  of  William  of  Champeaux,  or  John 
of  Salisbury  in  the  twelfth  century,  who  were  little 
more  than  theological  logicians.  The  thirteenth  cen- 
tury had  an  instrument  of  its  own,  at  least  as  important 
to  human  progress  as  the  classical  revival  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  This  was  the  recovery  in  substance 
of  the  works  of  Aristotle.  By  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century  the  entire  works  of  Aristotle  were 
more  or  less  sufficiently  known.  For  the  most  part 
they  were  translated  from  the  Arabic,  where  they  had 
lain  hid  for  six  centuries,  like  papyri  discovered  in  an 
Egyptian  mummy  case.  They  were  made  known  by 
Alexander  Hales  at  Paris,  by  Albert  the  Great  and 
Aquinas,  his  pupil  and  successor.  Albert  of  Cologne, 
the  '  Universal  Doctor,'  as  they  called  him,  might  him- 
self, by  virtue  of  his  encyclopaedic  method,  be  styled 


A  SURVEY  OF  THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY      175 

the  Aristotle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  as  St.  Bona- 
ventura,  the  '  Seraphic  Doctor,'  the  mystical  meta- 
physician, may  be  called  the  Plato  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  Roger  Bacon,  the  Oxford  Franciscan,  is  even 
yet  but  imperfectly  known  to  us,  though  he  is  often 
compared,  not  unfavourably,  with  his  famous  namesake, 
the  author  of  the  Novum  Organum.  But,  in  spite  of 
the  amazing  ingenuity  of  the  founder  of  natural  philo- 
sophy in  modern  Europe,  we  can  hardly  hesitate  to 
place  above  all  his  contemporaries  —  the  '  Angelic 
Doctor,'  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  Descartes  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  beyond  doubt  the  greatest 
philosophic  mind  between  Aristotle  and  Descartes. 

Albert,  Roger, '  Thomas,  combined,  as  did  Aristotle 
and  Descartes,  the  science  of  nature  with  the  philosophy 
of  thought ;  and,  though  we  look  back  to  the  Opus 
Majus  of  Roger  Bacon  with  wonder  and  admiration  for 
his  marvellous  anticipatory  guesses  of  modern  science, 
we  cannot  doubt  that  Aquinas  was  truly  the  mightier 
intellect.  Roger  Bacon  was,  indeed,  four  centuries  in 
advance  of  his  age — on  his  own  age  and  on  succeeding 
ages  he  produced  no  influence  at  all.  But  Aquinas  was 
'  the  master  of  those  who  know '  for  all  Christian 
thinkers  from  his  death,  in  1274,  until  the  age  of 
Francis  Bacon  and  Descartes.  Roger  Bacon,  like 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  or  Giordano  Bruno,  or  Spinoza, 
belongs  to  the  order  of  intellectual  pioneers,  who  are 
too  much  in  advance  of  their  age  and  of  its  actual 
resources  to  promote  civilisation  as  they  might  do,  or 
even  to  make  the  most  of  their  own  extraordinary 
powers. 

An  age  which  united  aspiring  intellect,  passionate 
devotion,  and  constructive  power,  naturally  created  a 
new  type  of  sacred  art.  The  pointed  architecture,  that 


1/6  THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

we  call  Gothic,  had  its  rise,  its  development,  its  highest 
splendour  in  the  thirteenth  century,  to  which  we  owe 
all  that  is  most  lovely  in  the  churches  of  Chartres, 
Amiens,  Reims,  Paris,  Bourges,  Strassburg,  Cologne, 
Burgos,  Toledo,  Westminster,  Salisbury,  and  Lincoln. 
It  is  true  that  there  are  some  traces  of  the  pointed  style 
in  France  in  the  twelfth  century,  at  St.  Denis,  at  Sens, 
and  at  Laon ;  but  the  true  glories  of  this  noble  art 
belong,  in  France,  to  the  reigns  of  Philip  Augustus  and 
of  St.  Louis ;  in  England,  to  those  of  Henry  III.  and 
Edward  I.  In  these  two  countries  we  must  seek  the 
origin  of  this  wonderful  creation  of  human  art,  of  which 
Chartres,  Amiens,  and  Westminster  are  the  central 
examples.  These  glorious  fanes  of  the  thirteenth  century 
were  far  more  than  works  of  art :  they  were  at  once 
temples,  national  monuments,  museums,  schools,  musical 
academies,  and  parliament  halls,  where  the  whole  people 
gathered  to  be  trained  in  every  form  of  art,  in  all  kinds 
of  knowledge,  and  in  all  modes  of  intellectual  cultiva- 
tion. They  were  the  outgrowth  of  the  whole  civilisation 
of  their  age,  in  a  manner  so  complete  and  intense,  that 
its  like  was  never  before  seen,  except  on  the  Acropolis 
of  Athens,  in  the  age  of  ^ischylus  and  Pericles.  It  is 
not  enough  to  recall  the  names  of  the  master  masons — 
Robert  de  Luzarches,  Robert  de  Coucy,  Erwin  of  Stein- 
bach,  and  Pierre  de  Montereau.  These  vast  temples  are 
the  creation  of  generations  of  men  and  the  embodiment 
of  entire  epochs ;  and  he  who  would  know  the  Middle 
Ages  should  study  in  detail  every  carved  figure,  every 
painted  window,  each  canopy,  each  relief,  each  portal 
in  Amiens,  or  Chartres,  Reims,  Bourges,  Lincoln,  or 
Salisbury,  and  he  will  find  revealed  to  him  more  than 
he  can  read  in  a  thousand  books. 

Obviously  the  thirteenth  century  is  the  great  age  of 


A   SURVEY   OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      177 

architecture — the  branch  of  art  which  of  all  the  arts  of 
form  is  at  once  the  most  social,  the  most  comprehensive, 
and  the  most  historic.  Great  buildings  include  sculpture, 
painting,  and  all  the  decorative  arts  together ;  they 
require  the  co-operation  of  an  entire  people ;  and  they 
are,  in  a  peculiar  manner,  characteristic  of  their  age. 
The  special  arts  of  form  are  more  associated  with 
individual  genius.  These,  as  was  natural,  belong  to 
centuries  later  than  the  thirteenth.  But,  even  in  the 
thirteenth,  sculpture  gave  us  the  peopled  portals  and  the 
exquisite  canopies  of  our  northern  cathedrals,  the  early 
palaces  of  Venice,  and  the  carvings  of  Nicolas  and  John 
of  Pisa,  which  almost  anticipate  Ghiberti  and  Donatello. 
And  in  painting,  Cimabue  opens  in  this  century  the 
long  roll  of  Italian  masters,  and  Giotto  was  already 
a  youth  of  glorious  promise,  before  the  century  was 
closed. 

The  literature  of  the  thirteenth  century  does  not,  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  stand  forth  with  such 
special  brillancy  as  its  art,  its  thought,  and  its  political 
activity.  As  in  most  epochs  of  profound  stirring  of 
new  ideas  and  of  great  efforts  after  practical  objects, 
the  energy  of  the  age  was  not  devoted  to  the  composi- 
tion of  elaborate  works.  It  was  natural  that  Dante 
should  be  a  century  later  than  Barbarossa  and  Innocent, 
and  that  Petrarch  of  Vaucluse  should  be  a  century  later 
than  Francis  of  Assisi.  But  the  thirteenth  century  was 
amply  represented,  both  in  poetry,  romance,  and  prose 
history.  All  of  these  trace  their  fountain-heads  to  an 
earlier  age,  and  all  of  them  were  fully  developed  in  a 
later  age.  But  French  prose  may  be  said  to  have  first 
taken  form  in  the  chronicle  of  Villehardouin  at  the 
opening  of  the  century,  and  the  chronicle  of  Joinville  at 
its  close.  The  same  century  also  added  to  the  Catholic 

M 


i;8  THE  MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

Hymnal  some  of  the  most  powerful  pieces  in  that 
glorious  Anthology — the  Dies  Irce,  the  Stabat  Mater, 
the  grand  hymns  of  Aquinas,  of  Bonaventura,  and  of 
Thomas  of  Celano.  It  produced  also  that  rich  repertory 
of  devotional  story,  the  Golden  Legend  of  Voragine.  It 
was,  moreover,  the  thirteenth  century  which  produced 
the  main  part  of  the  Roman  de  la  Rose,  the  favourite 
reading  of  the  Middle  Ages,  some  of  the  best  forms  of 
the  Arthurian  cycle,  Rutebceuf  and  the  French  lyrists, 
some  of  the  most  brilliant  of  the  Troubadours,  Sordello, 
Brunetto  Latini,  Guido  Cavalcanti,  and  the  precursors 
and  associates  of  Dante. 

As  to  Dante  himself,  it  is  not  easy  to  place  him  in  a 
survey  of  the  thirteenth  century.  In  actual  date  and  in 
typical  expression  he  belongs  to  it,  and  yet  he  does  not 
belong  to  it.  The  century  itself  has  a  transitional,  an 
ambiguous  character.  And  Dante,  like  it,  has  a  transi- 
tional and  double  office.  He  is  the  poet,  the  prophet, 
the  painter  of  the  Middle  Ages.  And  yet,  in  so  many 
things,  he  anticipates  the  modern  mind  and  modern 
art.  In  actual  date,  the  last  year  of  the  thirteenth 
century  is  the  'middle  term'  of  the  poet's  life,  his 
thirty-fifth  year.  Some  of  his  most  exquisite  work  was 
already  produced,  and  his  whole  mind  was  grown  to 
maturity.  On  the  other  hand,  every  line  of  the  Divine 
Comedy  was  actually  written  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  the  poet  lived  in  it  for  twenty  years.  Nor  was  the 
entire  vision  complete  until  near  the  poet's  death  in 
1321.  In  spirit,  in  design,  in  form,  this  great  creation 
has  throughout  this  double  character.  By  memory,  by 
inner  soul,  by  enthusiasm,  Dante  seems  to  dwell  with 
the  imperial  chiefs  of  Hohenstaufen,  with  Francis  and 
Dominic  Bernard  and  Aquinas.  He  paints  the  Catholic 
and  Feudal  world  ;  he  seems  saturated  with  the  Catholic 


A   SURVEY  OF   THE   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY      179 

and  Feudal  sentiment.  And  yet  he  deals  with  popes, 
bishops,  Church,  and  conclaves  with  the  audacious  in- 
tellectual freedom  of  a  Paris  dialectician  or  an  Oxford 
doctor.  Between  the  lines  of  the  great  Catholic  poem 
we  can  read  the  death-sentence  of  Catholic  Church  and 
Feudal  hierarchy.  Like  all  great  artists,  Dante  paints 
a  world  which  only  subsisted  in  ideal  and  in  memory, 
just  as  Spenser  and  Shakespeare  transfigured  in  their 
verse  a  humanistic  and  romantic  society  such  as  had 
long  disappeared  from  the  region  of  fact.  And  for  this 
reason,  and  for  others,  it  were  better  to  regard  the  sub- 
lime Dies  Ir<z,  which  the  Florentine  wanderer  chanted 
in  his  latter  years  over  the  grave  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
as  belonging  in  its  inner  spirit  to  a  later  time,  and  as 
being-  in  reality  the  dawn  of  modern  poetry. 

In  Dante,  as  in  Giotto,  in  Frederick  II.,  in  Edward  I., 
in  Roger  Bacon,  we  may  hear  the  trumpet  which  sum- 
moned the  Middle  Ages  into  the  modern  world.  The 
true  spirits  of  the  thirteenth  century,  still  Catholic  and 
Feudal,  are  Innocent  III.,  St.  Francis,  Stephen  Langton, 
Grossetete,Aquinas,Bonaventura,and  Albert  of  Cologne; 
Philip  Augustus,  St.  Louis,  the  Barons  of  Runnymede, 
and  Simon  de  Montfort ;  the  authors  of  the  Golden 
Legend  and  the  Catholic  Hymns,  the  Doctors  of  Paris, 
Oxford,  and  Bologna ;  the  builders  of  Amiens,  Notre 
Dame,  Lincoln,  and  Westminster. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHAT  THE  REVOLUTION   OF    1789  DID1 

'  Tout  ce  que  je  vois,  jette  les  semences  d'une  revolution  qui  arrivera  iniman- 
quablement.  .  .  .  Les  Fran9ais  arrivent  tard  4  tout,  mais  cnfin  ils  arrivent. 
.  .  .  Alors,  ce  sera  un  beau  tapage.  Les  jeunes  gens  sont  bien  heureux ;  ils 
verront  de  belles  choses.' — VOLTAIRE. 

THE  movement  known  as  the  Revolution  of  1789  was 
a  transformation — not  a  convulsion  ;  it  was  construc- 
tive even  more  than  destructive ;  and  if  it  was  in  out- 
ward manifestation  a  chaotic  revolution,  in  its  inner 
spirit  it  was  an  organic  evolution.  It  was  a  movement 
in  no  sense  local,  accidental,  temporary,  or  partial  ;  it 
was  not  simply,  nor  even  mainly,  a  political  movement. 
It  was  an  intellectual  and  religious,  a  moral,  social,  and 
economic  movement,  before  it  was  a  political  movement, 
and  even  more  than  it  was  a  political  movement. 

If  it  is  French  in  form,  it  is  European  in  essence.  It 
belongs  to  modern  history  as  a  whole  quite  as  much  as 
to  the  eighteenth  century  in  France.  Its  germs  began 
centuries  earlier  than  the  generation  of  1789,  and  its 
activity  will  long  outlast  the  generation  of  1889.  It  is 
not  an  episode  of  frenzy  in  the  life  of  a  single  nation. 
In  all  its  deeper  elements  it  is  a  condensation  of  the 
history  of  mankind,  a  repertory  of  all  social  and  political 
problems,  the  latest  and  most  complex  of  all  the  great 
crises  through  which  our  race  has  passed. 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  vol.  xlv.  N.s.     June  1889. 


WHAT  THE  REVOLUTION  OF    1789  DID  l8l 

Let  us  avoid  misunderstanding  of  what  we  are  now 
speaking.  Most  assuredly  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  France  displayed  a  convulsion,  a  frenzy,  a 
chaos  such  as  the  world's  history  has  not  often  equalled. 
There  was  folly,  crime,  waste,  destruction,  confusion, 
and  horror  of  stupendous  proportions,  and  of  all  imagin- 
able forms.  There  was  the  Terror,  the  Festival  of 
Reason,  the  Reaction,  and  all  the  delirium,  the  orgy, 
the  extravagance,  which  give  brilliancy  to  small  his- 
torians and  serve  as  rhetoric  to  petty  politicians. 
Assuredly  the  revolution  closed  in  with  most  ghastly 
surprises  to  the  philanthropists  and  philosophers  who 
entered  on  it  in  1789  with  so  light  a  heart.  Assuredly 
it  has  bequeathed  to  the  statesmen  and  the  people  of 
our  century  problems  of  portentous  difficulty  and 
number.  But  we  are  speaking  now  neither  of  '93  nor 
of  '95,  nor  of  '99,  of  no  local  or  special  incident,  of  no 
single  event,  nor  of  political  forms.  We  are  in  this 
essay  dealing  exclusively  with  '  the  ideas  of  '89,'  with 
the  movement  which  at  Versailles,  on  5th  May  1789, 
took  outward  and  visible  shape.  And  we  are  about  to 
deal  with  it  in  its  deeper,  social,  permanent,  and  human 
side,  not  in  its  transitory  and  material  side.  The  Seine, 
the  Loire,  and  the  Rhone  have  washed  away  the  blood 
which  once  defiled  their  streams,  the  havoc  caused  by 
the  orgies  of  anarchy  has  been  effaced,  years  make 
fainter  the  memory  of  crimes  and  follies,  of  revenge 
and  jealousy.  But  the  course  of  generations  still 
deepens  the  meaning  of '  the  ideas  of  '89,'  of  the  social, 
intellectual,  economic  new  birth  which  then  received 
official  recognition,  opening  in  a  conscious  and  popular 
form  the  reformation  that,  in  a  spontaneous  form,  had 
long  been  brooding  in  so  many  generous  hearts  and 
profound  brains. 


182  THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

No  reading  of  merely  French  history,  no  study  of  the 
reign  of  Louis  XVI.  by  itself,  can  explain  this  great 
movement — no  political  history,  no  narrative  of  events, 
no  account  of  any  special  institution.  Neither  the 
degeneration  of  the  monarchy,  nor  the  corruption  of 
the  nobility,  nor  the  disorder  of  the  administration,  nor 
the  barbarism  of  the  feudal  law,  nor  the  decay  of  the 
Church,  nor  the  vices  of  society,  nor  the  teaching  of 
any  school,  nor  all  of  these  together — are  adequate  to 
explain  the  revolution.  They  are  enough  to  account 
for  the  confusion,  waste,  conflict,  and  fury  of  the  con- 
test— i.e.  for  the  explosion.  But  they  do  not  explain 
how  it  is  that  hardly  anything  was  set  up  in  France 
between  1789  and  1799  which  had  not  been  previously 
discussed  and  prepared,  that  between  1789  and  1799 
an  immense  body  of  new  institutions  and  reformed 
methods  of  social  life  were  firmly  planted  in  such  a 
way  that  they  have  borne  fruit  far  and  wide  in  France 
and  through  Europe.  Nor  do  any  of  these  special 
causes  just  enumerated  suffice  to  explain  the  passion, 
the  contagious  faith,  the  almost  religious  fanaticism 
which  was  the  inner  strength  of  the  revolution  and  the 
source  of  its  inexhaustible  activity.  What  we  call  the 
French  Revolution  of  1789,  was  really  a  new  phase  of 
civilisation  announcing  its  advent  in  form.  It  had  the 
character  of  religious  zeal  because  it  was  a  movement 
of  the  human  race  towards  a  completer  humanity. 

Rhetoricians,  poets,  and  preachers  have  accustomed 
us  too  long  to  dwell  on  the  lurid  side  of  the  movement, 
on  its  follies,  crimes,  and  failures ;  they  have  overrated 
the  relative  importance  of  the  catastrophe,  and  by  pro- 
fuse pictures  of  the  horrors,  they  have  drawn  off  atten- 
tion from  its  solid  and  enduring  fruits.  In  the  midst  of 
the  agony  it  was  natural  that  Burke,  in  the  sunset  of  his 


WHAT  THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789  DID  1^3 

judgment,  should  denounce  it.  But  it  was  a  misfortune 
for  the  last  generation  that  the  purple  mantle  of  Burke 
should  have  fallen  on  a  prophet,  who  was  not  a  states- 
man but  a  man  of  letters,  who,  with  all  Burke's  passion 
and  prejudice,  had  but  little  of  his  philosophic  power, 
none  of  his  practical  sagacity,  none  of  the  great  Whig's 
experience  of  affairs  and  of  men.  The  '  universal  bon- 
fire '  theory,  the  '  grand  suicide '  view,  the  '  chaos-come- 
again '  of  a  former  generation,  are  seen  to  be  ridiculous 
in  ours.  The  movement  of  1789  was  far  less  the  final 
crash  of  an  effete  system  than  it  was  the  new  birth  of  a 
greater  system,  or  rather  of  the  irresistible  germs  of  a 
greater  system.  The  contemporaries  of  Tacitus,  Trajan, 
and  Marcus  Aurelius  could  see  nothing  but  ruin  in  the 
superstition  of  the  Galileans,  just  as  the  contemporaries 
of  Decius,  Julian,  and  Justinian  saw  nothing  but  bar- 
barism in  the  Goths,  the  Franks,  and  the  Arabs. 

The  year  1789,  more  definitely  than  any  other  date 
marks  any  other  transition,  marks  the  close  of  a  society 
which  had  existed  for  some  thousands  of  years  as  a 
consistent  whole,  a  society  more  or  less  based  upon 
military  force,  intensely  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  heredi- 
tary right,  bound  up  with  ideas  of  theological  sanction, 
sustained  by  a  scheme  of  supramundane  authority ;  a 
society  based  upon  caste,  on  class,  on  local  distinctions 
and  personal  privilege,  rooted  in  inequality,  political, 
social,  material,  and  moral  ;  a  society  of  which  the  hope 
of  salvation  was  the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo,  and 
of  which  the  Ten  Commandments  were  Privilege.  And 
the  same  year,  1789,  saw  the  official  installation  of  a 
society  which  was  essentially  based  on  peace,  the  creed 
of  which  was  industry,  equality,  progress ;  a  society 
where  change  was  the  evidence  of  life,  the  end  of  which 
was  social  welfare,  and  the  means  social  co-operation 


1 84  THE  MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

and  human  equity.  Union,  communion,  equality,  equity, 
merit,  labour,  justice,  consolidation,  fraternity — such 
were  the  devices  and  symbols  of  the  new  era.  It  is 
therefore  with  justice  that  modern  Europe  regards  the 
date  1789  as  a  date  that  marks  a  greater  evolution  in 
human  history  more  distinctly  than,  perhaps,  any  other 
single  date  which  could  be  named  between  the  reign  of 
the  first  Pharaoh  and  the  reign  of  Victoria. 

One  of  the  cardinal  pivots  in  human  history  we  call 
this  epoch,  and  not  at  all  a  French  local  crisis.  The 
proof  of  this  is  complete.  All  the  nations  of  Europe, 
and  indeed  the  people  of  America,  contributed  their 
share  to  the  movement,  and  more  or  less  partook  in  the 
movement  themselves.  It  was  hailed  as  a  new  dispen- 
sation by  men  of  various  race  ;  and  each  nation  in  turn 
more  or  less  added  to  the  movement  and  adopted  some 
element  of  the  movement.  The  intellectual  and  social 
upheaval,  which  for  generations  had  been  preparing  the 
movement,  was  common  to  the  enlightened  spirits  of 
Europe  and  also  to  the  Transatlantic  Continent.  The 
effects  of  the  movement  have  been  shared  by  all  Europe, 
and  the  distant  consequences  of  its  action  are  visible 
in  Europe  to  the  third  and  the  fourth  generations.  And 
lastly,  all  the  cardinal  features  of  the  movement  of  1789 
are  in  no  sense  locally  French,  or  of  special  national 
value.  They  are  equally  applicable  to  Europe,  and 
indeed  to  advanced  human  societies  everywhere.  They 
appeal  to  men  primarily,  and  to  Frenchmen  secondarily. 
They  relate  to  the  general  society  of  Europe,  and  not 
to  specific  national  institutions.  They  concern  the 
transformation  of  a  feudal,  hereditary,  privileged, 
authoritative  society,  based  on  antique  right,  into  a 
republican,  industrial,  equalised,  humanised  society, 
based  on  a  scientific  view  of  the  Common  Weal.  But 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  185 

this  is  not  a  national  idea,  a  French  conception  of  local 
application.  It  is  European,  or  rather  human.  And 
thus,  however  disastrous  to  France  may  have  been  the 
travail  of  the  movement  officially  proclaimed  in  1789, 
from  a  European  and  a  human  point  of  view  it  has 
abiding  and  pregnant  issues.  May  we  profit  by  its  good 
whilst  we  are  spared  its  evil. 

Obviously,  the  salient  form  of  the  revolution  was 
French,  ultra-French  ;  entirely  unique  and  of  inimitable 
peculiarity  in  some  of  its  worst  as  well  as  its  best  sides. 
The  delirium,  the  extravagances,  the  hysterics,  and  the 
brutalities  which  succeeded  one  another  in  a  series  of 
strange  tragi-comic  tableaux  from  1789  till  1795,  were 
most  intensely  French,  though  even  they,  from  Caps  of 
Liberty  to  Festival  of  Pikes,  have  had  a  singular  fascina- 
tion for  the  revolutionists  of  every  race.  But  the 
picturesque  and  melodramatic  accessories  of  the  re- 
volution have  been  so  copiously  over-coloured  by  the 
scene-painters  and  stage-carpenters  of  history,  that  we 
are  too  often  apt  to  forget  how  essentially  European  the 
revolution  was  in  all  its  deeper  meanings. 

A  dozen  kings  and  statesmen  throughout  Europe 
were,  in  a  way,  endeavouring  to  enter  on  the  same  path 
as  Louis  XVI.  with  Turgot  and  Necker.  In  spite  of  the 
contrast  between  the  government  of  England  and  the 
government  of  France,  between  the  condition  of  Eng- 
lish industry  and  that  of  France,  Walpole  and  Pitt  offer 
many  striking  points  of  analogy  with  Turgot  and 
Necker.  The  intellectual  commerce  between  England 
and  France  from  (let  us  say)  1725  to  1790  is  one  of  the 
most  memorable  episodes  in  the  history  of  the  human 
mind.  The  two  generations  which  followed  the  visit  of 
Voltaire  to  England  formed  an  intellectual  alliance  be- 
tween the  leading  spirits  of  our  two  nations  :  an  alliance 


1 86  THE  MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

of  amity,  offensive  and  defensive,  scientific,  economic, 
philosophical,  social,  and  political,  such  as  had  not  been 
seen  since  the  days  of  the  Greco-Roman  education  or 
the  cosmopolitan  fellowship  of  mediaeval  universities. 
Voltaire,  Montesquieu,  Hume,  Adam  Smith,  Franklin, 
Turgot,  Quesnay,  Diderot,  Condorcet,  d'Argenson, 
Gibbon,Washington,  Priestley,Bentham — even  Rousseau, 
Mabli,  Mirabeau,  and  Jefferson — belonged  to  a  Republic 
of  Ideas,  where  national  character  and  local  idiosyncrasy 
could  indeed  be  traced  in  each,  but  where  the  essential 
patriotism  of  humanity  is  dominant  and  supreme. 

In  England,  Pitt ;  in  Prussia,  Frederick ;  in  Austria, 
Joseph ;  in  Tuscany,  Leopold  ;  in  Portugal,  Pombal  ; 
in  Spain,  d'Aranda ;  all  laboured  to  an  end,  essentially 
similiar,  in  reforming  the  incoherent,  unequal,  and  obso- 
lete state  of  the  law ;  in  rectifying  abuses  in  finance ; 
in  bringing  some  order  into  administration,  in  abolishing 
some  of  the  burdens  and  chains  on  industry ;  in  im- 
proving the  material  condition  of  their  states ;  in  curb- 
ing the  more  monstrous  abuses  of  privilege ;  and  in 
founding  at  least  the  germs  of  what  we  call  modern 
civilised  government.  Some  of  these  things  were  done 
ill,  some  well,  most  of  them  tentatively  and  with  a 
naYve  ignorance  of  the  tremendous  forces  they  were 
handling,  with  a  strange  childishness  of  conception,  and 
in  all  cases  without  a  trace  of  suspicion  that  they  were 
changing  the  sources  of  power  and  their  political  con- 
stitution. And  in  all  this  the  rulers  were  led  and 
inspired  by  a  crowd  of  economical  and  social  reformers 
who  eagerly  proclaimed  Utopia  at  hand,  and  who  mis- 
took generous  ideals  for  scientific  knowledge.  For 
special  causes  the  great  social  evolution  concentrated 
itself  in  France  towards  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century ;  but  there  was  nothing  about  it  exclusively 


WHAT  THE  REVOLUTION  OF    1789  DID  187 

French.  Socially  and  economically  viewed,  it  was 
almost  more  English  and  Anglo-American  than  French; 
intellectually  and  morally  viewed,  it  was  hardly  more 
French  than  it  was  English.  Hume,  Adam  Smith, 
Burke,  and  Priestley  are  as  potent  in  the  realm  of  thought 
as  Diderot,  Montesquieu,  Rousseau,  and  Condorcet.  And 
in  the  realm  of  social  reform,  Europe  owes  as  much 
to  Bentham,  Howard,  Clarkson,  Franklin,  Washington, 
Pitt,  and  Frederick,  as  it  does  to  Turgot,  Mirabeau, 
Girondins,  Cordeliers,  or  Jacobins.  The  'ideas  of  '89' 
were  the  ideas  of  the  best  brains  and  most  humane 
spirits  in  the  advanced  nations  of  mankind.  All  nations 
bore  their  share  in  the  labour,  and  all  have  shared  in 
the  fruits. 

But  if  the  revolution  were  so  general  in  its  preparation, 
why  was  the  active  manifestation  of  it  concentrated  in 
France  ?  and  why  was  France  speedily  attacked  by  all 
the  nations  of  Europe  ?  These  two  questions  may  be 
answered  in  two  words.  In  France  only  were  the  old 
and  the  new  elements  ranged  face  to  face  without  inter- 
mixture or  contact,  with  nothing  between  them  but  a 
decrepit  and  demoralised  autocracy.  And  no  sooner 
had  the  inevitable  collision  begun,  than  the  governments 
of  Europe  were  seized  with  panic  as  they  witnessed  the 
fury  of  the  revolutionary  forces.  In  England  the  Refor- 
mation, the  Civil  War,  the  Revolution  of  1689,  and  the 
Hanoverian  dynasty,  had  transferred  the  power  of  the 
monarchy  to  a  wealthy,  energetic,  popular  aristocracy, 
which  had  largely  abandoned  its  feudal  privileges,  and 
had  closely  allied  itself  with  the  interests  of  wealth. 
During  two  centuries  of  continual  struggle  and  partial 
reform,  a  compromise  had  been  effected  in  Church  and 
in  State,  wherein  the  claims  of  king,  priest,  noble,  and 
merchant  had  been  fused  into  a  tolerable  modus  vivendi. 


1 88  THE  MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

In  France  the  contrary  was  the  case.  During  two 
centuries  the  monarchy  had  steadily  asserted  itself  as 
the  incarnation  of  the  public,'  claiming  for  itself  all 
public  rights,  and  undertaking  (in  theory)  all  public 
duties ;  crushing  out  the  feudal  authorities  from  all 
national  duties,  but  guaranteeing  to  them  intact  the 
whole  of  their  personal  privileges.  As  it  had  dealt 
with  the  aristocracy  so  it  dealt  with  the  Church  ;  making 
both  its  tool,  rilling  both  with  corruption,  and  giving 
them  in  exchange  nothing  but  license  to  exploit  the  lay 
commonalty.  The  lay  commonalty  naturally  expanded 
in  rooted  hostility  to  the  privileged  orders,  and  to  the 
religious  and  hereditary  ideas  on  which  privilege  rested. 
It  grew  stronger  every  day,  having  no  admixture  with 
the  old  orders,  no  points  of  contact,  having  no  outlet 
for  its  activity,  harassed,  insulted,  pillaged,  and  rebuffed 
at  every  turn,  twenty-six  millions  strong  against  two 
hundred  thousand ;  all  distinctions,  rivalries,  and 
authority,  as  amongst  this  tiers  Mat,  uniformly  crushed 
by  the  superincumbent  weight  of  Monarchy,  Church, 
and  Privilege. 

The  vast  mass  of  the  people  thus  grew  consolidated, 
without  a  single  public  outlet  for  its  energies,  or  the 
smallest  opportunity  for  experience  in  affairs ;  the  whole 
ability  of  the  nation  for  politics,  administration,  law,  or 
war,  was  forced  into  abstract  speculation  and  social 
discussion  ;  conscious  that  it  was  the  real  force  and 
possessed  the  real  wealth  of  the  nation  ;  increasing  its 
resources  day  by  day,  amidst  frightful  extortion  and 
incredible  barbarism,  which  it  was  bound  to  endure 
without  a  murmur  ;  the  thinking  world,  to  whom  action 
was  closed,  kept  watching  the  tremendous  problems  at 
stake  in  their  most  naked  and  menacing  aspect,  without 
any  disguise,  compromise,  or  alleviation.  And  in  France, 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  189 

where  the  old  feudal  and  ecclesiastical  system  was 
concentrated  in  its  most  aggravated  form,  there  it  was 
also  the  weakest,  most  corrupt,  and  most  servile.  And 
there,  too,  in  France  the  tiers  etat  was  the  most  numerous, 
the  most  consolidated,  the  most  charged  with  ideas, 
the  most  sharply  separated  off,  the  most  conscious  of 
its  power,  the  most  exasperated  by  oppression.  Thus 
it  came  about  that  a  European  evolution  broke  out  in 
France  into  revolution.  The  social  battle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  began  in  the  only  nation  which 
was  strictly  marshalled  in  two  opposing  camps ;  where 
the  oppressors  were  utterly  enfeebled  by  corruption  ; 
where  the  oppressed  were  fermenting  with  ideas  and 
boiling  with  indignation. 

The  fourteenth  and  the  fifteenth  centuries  saw  the 
silent  universal  but  unobserved  dissolution  of  the  old 
mediaeval  society.  For  crusades  the  soldier  took  to 
the  puerilities  of  the  tournament.  The  lordly  castles 
fell  one  by  one  before  the  strong  hand  of  the  king. 
The  humble  village  expanded  into  the  great  trading 
town.  The  Church  was  torn  by  factions  and  assailed 
by  heresies.  The  musket-ball  destroyed  the  supremacy 
of  the  mailed  knight.  The  printing-press  made  science 
and  thought  the  birthright  of  all.  The  sixteenth 
century  saw  a  temporary  resettlement  in  a  strong 
dominant  monarchy  and  a  compromise  in  religion. 
Whilst  the  seventeenth  century  in  England  gave  power 
to  a  transformed  and  modified  aristocracy,  in  France  it 
concentrated  the  whole  public  forces  in  a  monstrous 
absolutism,  whilst  nobility  and  Church  grew  daily  more 
rife  with  obsolete  oppression.  Hence,  in  France,  the 
ancient  monarchy  stood  alone  as  the  centre  of  the  old 
system.  Beside  it  stood  the  new  elements  unfettered 
and  untransformed.  It  was  the  simplicity  of  the 


190  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

problem,  the  glaring  nature  of  the  contrast,  which 
caused  the  intensity  of  the  explosion.  The  old  system 
stood  with  dry-rot  in  its  heart ;  the  new  was  bursting 
with  incoherent  hopes  and  undefined  ideals.  The 
Bastille  fell — and  a  new  era  began. 

Take  a  rapid  survey  of  France  in  the  closing  years 
of  the  Monarchy.  She  had  not  recovered  the  desolation 
of  the  long  wars  of  Louis  XIV.,  the  Revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  the  banishment  of  the  Protestants, 
the  monstrous  extravagance  of  Versailles  and  the 
corrupt  system  which  was  there  concentrated.  The 
entire  authority  was  practically  absorbed  by  the  Crown, 
whilst  the  most  incredible  confusion  and  disorganisation 
reigned  throughout  the  administration.  A  network  of  in- 
coherent authorities  crossed,  recrossed,  and  embarrassed 
each  other  throughout  the  forty  provinces.  The  law, 
the  customs,  the  organisation  of  the  provinces,  differed 
from  each  other.  Throughout  them  existed  thousands 
of  hereditary  offices  without  responsibility,  and  sinecures 
cynically  created  for  the  sole  purpose  of  being  sold. 
The  administration  of  justice  was  as  completely  inco- 
herent as  the  public  service.  Each  province,  and  often 
each  district,  city,  or  town,  had  special  tribunals  with 
peculiar  powers  of  its  own  and  anomalous  methods  of 
jurisdiction.  There  were  nearly  four  hundred  different 
codes  of  customary  law.  There  were  civil  tribunals, 
military  tribunals,  commercial  tribunals,  exchequer 
tribunals,  ecclesiastical  tribunals,  and  manorial  tribunals. 
A  vast  number  of  special  causes  could  only  be  heard  in 
special  courts  :  a  vast  body  of  privileged  persons  could 
only  be  sued  before  special  judges.  If  civil  justice  was 
in  a  state  of  barbarous  complication  and  confusion, 
criminal  justice  was  even  more  barbarous.  Preliminary 
torture  before  trial,  mutilation,  ferocious  punishments, 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  IQI 

a  lingering  death  by  torment,  a  penal  code  which  had 
death  or  bodily  mutilation  in  every  page,  were  dealt  out 
freely  to  the  accused  without  the  protection  of  counsel, 
the  right  of  appeal,  or  even  a  public  statement  of  the 
sentence.  For  ecclesiastical  offences,  and  these  were  a 
wide  and  vague  field,  the  punishment  was  burning  alive. 
Loss  of  the  tongue,  of  eyes,  of  limbs,  and  breaking  on 
the  wheel,  were  common  punishments  for  very  moderate 
crimes.  Madame  Roland  tells  us  how  the  summer 
night  was  made  hideous  by  the  yells  of  wretches  dying 
by  inches  after  the  torture  of  the  wheel.  With  this 
state  of  justice  there  went  systematic  corruption  in  the 
judges,  bribery  of  officials  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  and  an  infinite  series  of  exactions  and  delays  in 
trial.  To  all  but  the  rich  and  the  privileged,  a  civil 
cause  portended  ruin,  a  criminal  accusation  was  a  risk 
of  torture  and  death. 

The  public  finances  were  in  even  more  dreadful  con- 
fusion than  public  justice.  The  revenue  was  farmed  to 
companies  and  to  persons  who  drew  from  it  enormous 
gains,  in  some  cases,  it  is  said,  cent,  per  cent.  The 
deficit  grew  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  at  the  rate  of 
four  or  five  millions  sterling  each  year ;  and  by  the  end 
of  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI.  the  deficit  had  grown  to 
eight  or  ten  millions  a  year.  But  as  to  the  exact  deficit 
for  each  year,  or  as  to  the  total  debt  of  the  nation,  no 
man  could  speak.  Louis  XV.  in  one  year  personally 
consumed  eight  millions  sterling,  and  one  of  his 
mistresses  alone  received  during  her  reign  a  sum  of 
more  than  two  millions.  Just  before  the  Revolution 
the  total  taxation  of  all  kinds  amounted  to  some  sixty 
millions  sterling.  Of  this  not  more  than  half  was  spent 
in  the  public  service.  The  rest  was  the  plunder  of 
the  privileged,  in  various  degrees,  from  king  to  the 


192  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

mistress's  lackey.  This  enormous  taxation  was  paid 
mainly  by  the  non-privileged,  who  were  less  than 
twenty-six  millions.  The  nobles,  the  clergy,  were 
exempt  from  property-tax,  though  they  held  between 
them  more  than  half  of  the  entire  land  of  France.  The 
State  could  only  raise  loans  at  a  rate  of  twenty  per  cent. 

With  an  army  of  less  than  140,000  men,  there  were 
60,000  officers,  in  active  service  or  on  half-pay,  all  of 
them  exclusively  drawn  from  the  privileged  class. 
Twelve  thousand  prelates  and  dignified  clergy  had  a 
revenue  of  more  than  two  millions  sterling.  Four 
millions  more  was  divided  amongst  some  60,000  minor 
priests.  Altogether  the  privileged  orders,  having  here- 
ditary rank  or  ecclesiastical  office,  numbered  more  than 
200,000  persons.  Besides  these,  some  50,000  families 
were  entitled  to  hereditary  office  of  a  judicial  sort,  who 
formed  the  '  nobility  of  the  robe.'  The  trades  and 
merchants  were  organised  in  privileged  gilds,  and 
every  industry  was  bound  by  a  network  of  corporate 
and  local  restrictions.  Membership  of  a  gild  was  a 
matter  of  purchase.  Not  only  was  each  gild  a  privi- 
leged corporation,  but  each  province  was  fiscally  a 
separate  state,  with  its  local  dues,  local  customs'  tariff, 
and  special  frontiers.  In  the  south  of  France  alone 
there  were  some  4000  miles  of  internal  customs'  frontier. 
An  infinite  series  of  dues  were  imposed  in  confusion 
over  districts  selected  by  hazard  or  tradition.  An 
article  would  sell  in  one  province  for  ten  times  the 
price  it  would  have  in  another  province.  The  dues 
chargeable  on  the  navigation  of  a  single  river  amounted, 
we  are  told,  to  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  goods 
carried. 

But  these  abuses  were  trifling  or  at  least  endurable 
when  set  beside  the  abuses  which  crushed  the  cultivation 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  193 

of  the  soil.  About  a  fifth  of  the  soil  of  France  was  in 
mortmain,  the  inalienable  property  of  the  Church. 
Nearly  half  the  soil  was  held  in  big  estates,  and  was 
tilled  on  the  metayer  system.  About  one-third  of 
it  was  the  property  of  the  peasant.  But  though  the 
property  of  the  peasant,  it  was  bound,  as  he  was  bound, 
by  an  endless  list  of  restrictions.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
each  fief  had  been  a  kingdom  of  itself;  each  lord  a 
petty  king  ;  the  government,  the  taxation,  the  regulation 
of  each  fief,  was  practically  the  national  government, 
the  public  taxation,  and  the  social  institutions.  But  in 
France,  whilst  the  national  authority  had  passed  from 
the  lord  of  the  fief  to  the  national  Crown,  the  legal 
privileges,  the  personal  and  local  exemptions,  were 
preserved  intact.  The  peasant  remained  for  many 
practical  purposes  a  serf,  even  whilst  he  owned  his  own 
farm.  A  series  of  dues  were  payable  to  the  lord  ; 
personal  services  were  still  exacted  ;  special  rights  were 
in  full  vigour.  The  peasant,  proprietor  as  he  was,  still 
delved  the  lord's  land,  carted  his  produce,  paid  his  local 
dues,  made  his  roads.  All  this  had  to  be  done  without 
payment,  as  corvee,  or  forced  labour  tax.  The  peasants 
were  in  the  position  of  a  people  during  a  most  op- 
pressive state  of  siege,  when  a  foreign  army  is  in 
occupation  of  a  country.  The  foreign  army  was  the 
privileged  order.  Everything  and  every  one  outside  of 
this  order  was  the  subject  of  oppressive  nquisition. 
The  lord  paid  no  taxes  on  his  lands,  was  not  answerable 
to  the  ordinary  tribunals,  was  practically  exempt  from 
the  criminal  law,  had  the  sole  right  of  sporting,  could 
alone  serve  as  an  officer  in  the  army,  could  alone  aspire 
to  any  office  under  the  Crown.  In  one  province  alone 
during  a  single  reign  two  thousand  tolls  were  abolished. 
There  were  tolls  on  bridges,  on  ferries,  on  paths,  on 

N 


194  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

fairs,  on  markets.  There  were  rights  of  warren,  rights 
of  pigeon-houses,  of  chase,  and  fishing.  There  were 
dues  payable  on  the  birth  of  an  heir,  on  marriage,  on 
the  acquisition  of  a  new  property  by  the  lord,  dues 
payable  for  fire,  for  the  passage  of  a  flock,  for  pasture, 
for  wood.  The  peasant  was  compelled  to  bring  his 
corn  to  be  ground  in  the  lord's  mill,  to  crush  his  grapes 
at  the  lord's  wine-press,  to  suffer  his  crops  to  be  de- 
voured by  the  lord's  game  and  pigeons.  A  heavy  fine 
was  payable  on  sale  or  transfer  of  the  property  ;  on 
every  side  were  due  quit-rents,  rent-charges,  fines,  dues 
in  money  and  in  kind,  which  could  not  be  commuted 
and  could  not  be  redeemed.  After  the  lord's  dues 
came  those  of  the  Church,  the  tithes  payable  in  kind, 
and  other  dues  and  exactions  of  the  spiritual  army. 
And  even  this  was  but  the  domestic  side  of  the  picture. 
After  the  lord  and  the  Church  came  the  king's  officers, 
the  king's  taxes,  the  king's  requisitions,  with  all  the 
multiform  oppression,  corruption,  and  peculation  of 
the  farmers  of  the  revenue  and  the  intendants  of  the 
province. 

Under  this  manifold  congeries  of  more  than  Turkish 
misrule,  it  was  not  surprising  that  agriculture  was 
ruined  and  the  country  became  desolate.  A  fearful 
picture  of  that  desolation  has  been  drawn  for  us  by 
our  economist,  Arthur  Young,  in  1787,  1788,  1789. 
Every  one  is  familiar  with  the  dreadful  passages 
wherein  he  speaks  of  haggard  men  and  women  wearily 
tilling  the  soil,  sustained  on  black  bread,  roots,  and 
water,  and  living  in  smoky  hovels  without  windows ; 
of  the  wilderness  presented  by  the  estates  of  absentee 
grandees ;  of  the  infinite  tolls,  dues,  taxes,  and  im- 
positions, of  the  cruel  punishments  on  smugglers,  on 
the  dealers  in  contraband  salt,  on  poachers,  and 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  195 

deserters.  It  was  not  surprising  that  famines  were 
incessant,  that  the  revenue  decreased,  and  that  France 
was  sinking  into  the  decrepitude  of  an  Eastern  ab- 
solutism. '  For  years,'  said  d'Argenson,  '  I  have  watched 
the  ruin  increasing.  Men  around  me  are  now  starving 
like  flies,  or  eating  grass.'  There  were  thirty  thousand 
beggars,  and  whole  provinces  living  on  occasional  alms, 
two  thousand  persons  in  prison  for  smuggling  salt 
alone.  Men  were  imprisoned  by  lettres  de  cachet  by  the 
thousand. 

This  state  of  things  was  only  peculiar  to  France  by 
reason  of  the  vast  area  over  which  it  extended,  of  the 
systematic  scale  on  which  it  was  worked,  and  the 
intense  concentration  of  the  evil.  In  substance  it  was 
common  to  Europe.  It  was  the  universal  legacy  of 
the  feudal  system,  and  the  general  corruption  of 
hereditary  government.  In  England,  four  great  crises, 
that  of  1540,  1648,  1688,  and  1714,  had  very  largely 
got  rid  of  these  evils.  But  they  existed  in  even  greater 
intensity  in  Ireland  and  partly  in  Scotland ;  they 
flourished  in  the  East  of  Europe  in  full  force ;  the 
corruption  of  government  was  as  great  in  the  South  of 
Europe.  The  profligacy  of  Louis  XV.  was  hardly  worse 
in  spirit,  though  it  was  more  disgusting  than  that  of 
Charles  II.  The  feudalism  of  Germany  and  Austria 
was  quite  as  barbarous  as  that  of  France.  And '  in 
Italy  and  in  Spain  the  Church  was  more  intolerant, 
more  depraved,  and  more  powerful.  But  in  France,  the 
whole  of  the  antique  abuses  were  collected  in  their 
most  aggravated  shape,  in  the  most  enormous  volume, 
and  with  the  least  of  compensating  check.  In  England, 
the  persons  with  hereditary  rank  hardly  numbered  more 
than  a  few  hundreds,  and  perhaps  the  entire  families  of 
the  noble  class  did  not  exceed  two  thousand  ;  in  France 


196  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

they  exceeded  one  hundred  thousand.  In  England  the 
prelates  and  dignified  clergy  hardly  exceeded  one  or 
two  hundred  ;  in  France  they  numbered  twelve  thou- 
sand. In  England  the  entire  body  of  ecclesiastics  did 
not  number  twenty  thousand  ;  in  France  they  much 
exceeded  one  hundred  thousand.  In  England,  no 
single  subject  had  any  personal  privilege,  except  the 
trifling  personal  exemptions  of  a  few  hundred  peers  ; 
no  exemption  from  taxation  was  known  to  the  law  ; 
and  no  land  was  free  from  the  king's  taxes.  In  France 
more  than  half  the  soil,  and  two  orders,  amounting 
together  to  over  two  hundred  thousand  persons,  were 
exempt.  In  England,  with  trifling  exceptions,  the  old 
feudal  rights  had  become  obsolete  or  nominal.  The 
legal  rights  of  the  lord  had  disappeared,  along  with 
his  castle,  in  the  great  Civil  War.  In  France  the  lord 
retained  his  social  prerogatives  after  losing  the  whole 
of  his  public  functions.  In  Germany,  in  Italy,  in  Spain, 
the  lord  still  retained  a  large  part  of  his  real  power,  and 
had  been  forced  to  surrender  some  definite  portion  of 
his  oppressive  privilege. 

But  in  France,  where  the  whole  of  the  ancient  abuses 
existed  on  a  scale  and  with  an  organised  completeness 
that  was  seen  nowhere  else,  there  was  also  the  most 
numerous,  the  most  enlightened,  and  the  most  ambitious 
body  of  reformers.  In  presence  of  this  portentous  mis- 
rule and  this  outrageous  corruption,  an  army  of  ardent 
spirits  had  been  gathered  together  with  a  passionate 
desire  to  correct  it.  It  was  an  army  recruited  from  all 
classes — from  the  ancient  nobility,  and  even  the  royal 
blood,  from  the  lords  of  the  soil,  and  the  dignitaries  of 
the  Church,  from  lawyers,  physicians,  merchants,  arti- 
ficers ;  from  sons  of  the  petty  tradesman,  like  Diderot ; 
from  sons  of  the  notary,  like  Voltaire  ;  of  the  clock- 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789  DID  197 

maker,  like  Rousseau ;  of  the  canoness,  like  d'Alembert ; 
of  the  provost,  like  Turgot ;  of  the  marquis,  like 
d'Argenson  and  Condorcet.  This  band  of  thinkers 
belonged  to  no  special  class,  and  to  no  single  country. 
Intellectually  speaking,  its  real  source  in  the  first  half 
of  the  century  was  in  England,  in  English  ideas  of  reli- 
gious and  political  equality,  in  English  institutions  of 
material  good  government  and  industry.  In  the  two 
generations  preceding  1789,  such  Englishmen  as  Boling- 
broke,  Hume,  Adam  Smith,  Priestley,  Bentham,  John 
Howard  (one  might  almost  claim  part,  at  least,  of  Burke 
and  of  Pitt)  ;  such  Americans  as  Franklin,  Washington, 
and  Jefferson  ;  such  Italians  as  Beccaria  and  Galiani ; 
such  Germans  as  Lessing,  Goethe,  Frederick  the  Great, 
and  Joseph  II.,  had  as  much  part  in  it  as  Voltaire, 
Montesquieu,  Turgot,  Diderot,  and  Condorcet,  and  the 
rest  of  the  French  thinkers  who  are  specially  associated 
in  our  thoughts  with  the  movement  so  ill-described  as 
the  French  Revolution. 

By  the  efforts  of  such  men  every  element  of  modern 
society,  and  every  political  institution  as  we  now  know 
it,  had  been  reviewed  and  debated — not,  indeed,  with 
any  coherent  doctrine,  and  utterly  without  system  or 
method.  The  reformers  differed  much  amongst  them- 
selves, and  there  were  almost  as  many  schemes  of  political 
philosophy,  of  social  economy,  of  practical  organisation, 
as  there  were  writers  and  speakers.  But  in  the  result, 
what  we  now  call  modern  Europe  emerged,  recast 
in  State,  in  Church,  in  financial,  commercial,  and  indus- 
trial organisation,  with  a  new  legal  system,  a  new  fiscal 
system,  a  humane  code,  and  religious  equality.  Over 
the  whole  of  Europe  the  civil  and  criminal  code  was 
entirely  recast ;  cruel  punishments,  barbarous  sentences, 
anomalies,  and  confusion  were  swept  away ;  the  treat- 


198  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

ment  of  criminals,  of  the  sick,  of  the  insane,  and  of  the 
destitute  was  subjected  to  a  continuous  and  systematic 
reform,  of  which  we  have  as  yet  seen  only  the  first  instal- 
ment. The  whole  range  of  fiscal  taxation,  local  and 
imperial,  external  and  internal,  direct  and  indirect,  has 
been  in  almost  every  part  of  Western  Europe  entirely 
reformed.  A  new  local  administration  on  the  principle 
of  departments,  subdivided  into  districts,  cantons,  and 
communes,  has  been  established  in  France,  and  thence 
copied  in  a  large  part  of  Europe.  The  old  feudal  system 
of  territorial  law,  which  in  England  had  been  to  a  great 
extent  reformed  at  the  Civil  War,  was  recast  not  only  in 
France  but  in  the  greater  part  of  Western  Europe. 
Protestants,  Jews,  and  Dissenters  of  all  orders  practically 
obtained  full  toleration  and  the  right  of  worship.  The 
monstrous  corruption  and  wealth  of  the  remnants  of  the 
mediaeval  Church  was  reduced  to  manageable  propor- 
tions. Public  education  became  one  of  the  great  functions 
of  the  State.  Public  health,  public  morality,  science, 
art,  industry,  roads,  posts,  and  trade,  became  the  sub- 
stantive business  of  government.  These  are  '  the  ideas 
of  '89 ' — these  are  the  ideas  which  for  two  generations 
before  '89  Europe  had  been  preparing,  and  which  for 
three  generations  since  '89  she  has  been  systematically 
working  out. 

We  have  just  taken  a  rapid  survey  of  France  in  its 
political  and  material  organisation  down  to  1789,  let  us 
take  an  equally  rapid  survey  of  the  new  institutions  which 
1789  so  loudly  proclaimed,  and  so  stormily  introduced. 

i.  For  the  old  patriarchal,  proprietary,  de  jure  theory 
of  rule,  there  was  everywhere  substituted  on  the  Con- 
tinent of  Europe  the  popular,  fiduciary,  pro  bono  publico 
notion  of  rule.  Government  ceased  to  be  the  privilege 
of  the  ruler ;  it  became  a  trust  imposed  on  the  ruler  for 


WHAT   THE    REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  199 

the  common  weal  of  the  ruled.  Long  before  1789  this 
general  idea  had  been  established  in  England  and  in  the 
United  States.  During  the  whole  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  English  political  struggles  had 
centred  round  this  grand  principle :  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  in  1776  had  formulated  it  in  memorable 
phrases.  But  how  little  the  full  meaning  of  this — the 
cardinal  idea  of  1789 — was  completely  accepted  even  in 
England,  the  whole  history  of  the  reign  of  George  III. 
may  remind  us,  and  the  second  and  reactionary  half  of 
the  careers  of  William  Pitt  and  Edmund  Burke.  Over 
the  continent  of  Europe,  down  to  1789,  the  proprietary 
jure  divino  theory  of  privilege  existed  in  full  force, 
except  in  some  petty  republics,  which  were  of  slight 
practical  consequence.  The  long  war,  the  reactionary 
Empire  of  Napoleon,  and  the  royal  reaction  which  fol- 
lowed its  overthrow,  made  a  faint  semblance  of  revival 
for  privilege.  But,  after  the  final  extinction  of  the 
Bourbons  in  1830,  the  idea  of  privilege  disappeared  from 
the  conception  of  the  State.  In  England,  the  Reform 
Act  of  1832,  and  finally  the  European  movements  of 
1 848,  completed  the  change.  So  that  throughout  Europe, 
west  of  Russia  and  of  Turkey,  all  governments  alike — 
imperial,  royal,  aristocratic,  or  republican  as  they  may 
be  in  form,  exist  more  or  less  in  fact,  and  in  profession 
exist  exclusively,  for  the  general  welfare  of  the  nation. 
This  is  the  first  and  central  idea  of  '89. 

This  idea  is,  in  the  deeper  meaning  of  the  word, 
republican — so  far  as  republican  implies  the  public  good, 
the  common  weal  as  contrasted  with  privilege,  property, 
or  right.  But  it  is  not  exclusively  republican,  in  the 
sense  that  it  implies  the  absence  of  a  single  ruler ;  nor 
is  it  necessarily  democratic,  in  the  sense  of  being  direct 
government  by  numbers.  It  is  an  error  to  assume  that 


200  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

the  Revolution  of  1789  introduced  as  an  abstract  doctrine 
the  democratic  republic  pure  and  simple.  Republics 
and  democracies  of  many  forms  grew  out  of  the  move- 
ment. But  the  movement  itself  also  threw  up  many 
forms  of  government  by  a  dictator,  government  by  a 
Council,  constitutional  monarchy,  and  democratic  im- 
perialism. All  of  these  equally  claim  to  be  based  on 
the  doctrine  of  the  common  weal,  and  to  represent  the 
ideas  of  '89.  And  they  have  ample  right  to  make  that 
claim.  The  movement  of '89,  based  on  the  dominant 
idea  of  the  public  good  as  opposed  to  privilege,  took  all 
kinds  of  form  in  the  mouths  of  those  who  proclaimed 
it.  Voltaire  understood  it  in  one  way,  Montesquieu  in 
another,  Diderot  in  a  third,  and  Rousseau  in  a  fourth. 
The  democratic  monarchy  of  d'Argenson,  the  constitu- 
tional monarchy  of  Mirabeau,  the  democratic  republic 
of  Marat,  the  plutocratic  republic  of  Vergniaud,  the 
republican  dictatorship  of  Danton,  even  the  military 
dictatorship  of  the  First  Consul — were  all  alike  different 
readings  of  the  Bible  of  '89.  It  means  government  by 
capacity,  not  by  hereditary  title,  with  the  welfare  of  the 
whole  people  as  its  end,  and  the  consent  of  the  governed 
as  its  sole  legitimate  title. 

2.  The  next  grand  idea  of  '89  is  the  scientific  consoli- 
dation of  law,  administration,  personal  right,  and  local 
responsibility.  Out  of  the  infinite  confusion  of  inequality 
that  the  lingering  decay  of  Feudalism  during  four  cen- 
turies had  left  in  Europe,  France  emerged  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  with  a  scientific  and  uniform  code  of  law, 
a  just  and  scientific  system  of  land  tenure,  an  admirable 
system  of  local  organisation,  almost  absolute  equality  of 
persons  before  the  law,  and  almost  complete  assimilation 
of  territorial  right.  The  French  peasant  who  in  1789 
struck  Arthur  Young  with  horror  and  pity,  as  the 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  2OI 

scandal  of  Europe,  is  now  the  envy  of  the  tillers  of  the 
soil  in  most  parts  of  the  continent,  and  assuredly  in 
these  islands.  The  most  barbarous  land  tenure  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  most  brutal  criminal  code,  the 
most  complicated  fabric  ever  raised  by  privilege,  which 
France  in  1789  exhibited  to  the  scorn  of  mankind,  has 
given  way  to  the  most  advanced  scheme  of  personal 
equality,  to  the  paradise  of  the  peasant  proprietor,  and 
to  the  least  feudalised  of  all  codes,  which  France  can 
exhibit  at  present.  It  would  be  far  easier  to  show  in 
England  to-day  the  unweeded  remnants  of  feudal  privi- 
lege, of  landlord  law  and  landlord  justice,  and  certainly 
it  is  easier  to  show  it  in  Ireland  and  in  Scotland,  than  it 
is  in  France.  Territorial  oppression,  the  injustice  of  the 
land-laws,  the  burden  of  game,  or  the  customary  exac- 
tions of  the  landlord,  may  be  found  in  Ireland,  may  be 
found  in  Scotland,  may  be  found  in  England — but  they 
have  absolutely  disappeared  in  France.  Her  eight 
million  peasants  who  own  the  soil  are  the  masters  of 
their  own  destiny,  for  France  has  now  eight  million 
kings,  eight  million  lords  of  the  soil.  The  20,000  or 
30,000,  it  may  be,  who  in  these  islands  own  the  rural 
lands,  should  ponder  when  the  turn  of  their  labourers 
will  come  to  share  in  '  the  ideas  of  '89.' 

3.  Down  to  1789  France  exhibited  an  amazing  chaos 
of  local  government  institutions.  In  the  nineteenth 
century  she  possessed  one  that  was  perhaps  the  most 
symmetrical,  the  most  scientific,  and  the  most  adaptable 
now  extant.  It  may  well  be  that  under  it  centralisation 
has  been  grossly  exaggerated  and  local  life  suppressed. 
That,  however,  is  a  legacy  from  the  old  monarchy,  and 
is  not  the  work  of  the  Revolution.  The  idea  of  '89  is 
not  centralisation,  but  decentralisation.  The  excessive 
concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  a  prefect  is  part 


2O2  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

of  the  ancient  tradition  of  France.  The  aim  of  d'Argen- 
son,  of  Turgot,  of  Mabli,  of  Malesherbes,  was  to  give 
free  life  to  local  energy,  to  restrain  the  abuses  of  bureau- 
cracy. There  is  still  in  France  an  oppressive  measure 
of  bureaucracy  and  a  monstrous  centralisation.  But  a 
large  part  of  the  Continent  has  adopted  from  her  the 
organic  arrangement  of  subordinate  authorities  which 
the  Revolution  created,  and  which  may  be  equally 
adopted  by  monarchy,  empire,  or  republic  ;  which  may 
be  combined  with  local  self-government  as  well  as  with 
imperial  autocracy. 

4.  Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  law  which  the 
Revolution  founded.    The  Civil  Code  of  France,  to  which 
so  unfairly  Napoleon  contrived  to  give  his  name,  was 
neither  the  work  of  Bonaparte,  nor  of  the  Empire,  nor 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  in  substance  the  work 
of  Pothier,  of  the  great  lawyers  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
from  whose  writings  four-fifths  of  it  is  textually  taken  ; 
and  Tronchet,  its  true  author,  is  essentially  a  man  of  the 
eighteenth  century.    It  is  true  that,  compared  with  some 
modern  codes,  the  Civil  Code  of  France  is  visibly  de- 
fective.     But,  such  as  it  is,  it  has  made  the  tour  of 
Europe,  and  is  the  basis  of  half  the  codes  now  extant. 
It  was  the  earliest  scientific  code  of  modern  law,  for  the 
Code  of  Frederick  belongs  to  the  world  of  yesterday, 
and  not  of  to-day.     The  Civil  Code  of  France  remains 
still,  with  all  its  shortcomings,  the  great  type  of  a  modern 
code,  and  is  a  truly  splendid  fruit  of  the  ideas  of  '89. 

5.  With  the  Code  came  in  also  a  scientific  recasting 
of  the  entire  system  of  justice — civil,   criminal,   com- 
mercial, and  constitutional ;  local  and  central,  primary, 
intermediate,   and    supreme.     Within    a   generation   at 
most,  to  a  great  extent  within  a   few   years,   France 
passed  from  a  system   of  justice   the   most  complex, 


WHAT  THE  REVOLUTION   OF    1789  DID  2O3 

cruel,  and  obsolete,  to  a  system  the  most  symmetrical, 
humane,  and  scientific.  And  that  which  in  England, 
and  in  many  other  countries  of  Europe,  has  been  the 
gradual  work  of  a  century,  was  reached  in  France 
almost  at  a  bound  by  the  generation  that  saw  '89. 

6.  With  a  new  law  there  came  in  a  new  fiscal  system, 
a  reform  as  important,  as  elaborate  as  that  of  the  civil 
code,    and   we   must    say   quite    as    successful.      The 
financial  condition  of  France  during  the  whole  of  the 
reigns   of  Louis   XV.    and    Louis    XVI.   had   presented 
perhaps  the  most  stupendous  example  of  confusion  and 
corruption  which  could  be  found  outside  a  Turkish  or 
Asiatic   despotism.     It  was  unquestionably  the  direct, 
primary,  material  origin  of  the  Revolution.     It  was  the 
main  object  of  the  labours  of  the  truest  reformers  of  the 
age.      D'Argenson,  Turgot,   Malesherbes,  Necker,  and 
Mirabeau  devoted  to  the  appalling  task  the  best  of  their 
thoughts  and  efforts.     Before  all  of  them,  and  before  all 
the  names  of  the  century,  the  noble  Turgot  stands  forth 
as  the  very  type  of  the  financial  reformer.     The  con- 
ditions in  which  he  sacrificed  his  life  in  vain  efforts  were 
too  utterly  bad  for  even  his  genius  and  heroic  honesty 
to  prevail.     But  the  effort  was  not  in  vain.     The  idea 
of  '89  was  to  put  an  end  to  the  monstrous  injustice  and 
plunder  of  the  old  monarchic  and  feudal  fisc,  to  establish 
in  its  place  an  equal,  just,  scientific  system  of  finance. 
Compared  with  English  finance,  the  great  triumph  of 
parliamentary    government,    the    financial    system    of 
modern    France   seems  often  defective   to  us.     But  as 
compared   with  the   financial  condition  of  the  rest  of 
Europe,  the  reforms  of  '89  have  practically  accomplished 
the  end. 

7.  Along  with  a  reformed  finance  came  in  a  reformed 
tariff,   the    entire    sweeping    away    of  the    provincial 


204  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

customs'  frontier,  that  monstrous  legacy  of  feudal  dis- 
integration, and  a  complete  revision  of  the  burdens  on 
industry.  Political  economy  as  a  science  may  be  said 
to  be  one  of  the  cardinal  ideas  of  '89 ;  the  very  con- 
ception of  a  social  science,  vaguely  and  dimly  perceived 
by  the  great  leaders  of  thought  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, was  itself  one  of  the  most  potent  causes,  and  in 
some  ways,  one  of  the  most  striking  effects  of  the 
Revolution  of  '89.  The  great  founders  of  the  concep- 
tion of  a  social  science  were  all  prominent  chiefs  of  the 
movement  which  culminated  in  that  year.  Voltaire, 
Montesquieu,  Diderot,  d'Argenson,  Turgot,  Quesnay, 
Condorcet,  were  at  once  social  economists  and  pre- 
cursors of  the  great  crisis.  Adam  Smith  was  as  much 
an  authority  in  France  as  he  was  in  England.  Political 
economy  and  a  scientific  treatment  of  the  national  pro- 
duction and  consumption  became  with  the  Revolution  a 
cardinal  idea  of  statesmen  and  publicists.  We  are  apt 
to  think  that  our  French  friends  are  weak-kneed 
economists  at  best,  and  perversely  inclined  to  economic 
heresy.  It  may  be  so.  Our  free-trade  doctrines  have 
been  preached  to  deaf  ears,  and  our  gospel  of  absolute 
freedom  makes  but  little  progress  in  France.  But  it  can 
hardly  be  denied  that  the  economic  legislation  of  France 
is  entirely  in  accord  with  economic  doctrine  in  France, 
or  that  the  political  economy  of  the  State  is  abreast  of 
the  demands  of  public  opinion. 

8.  To  pass  from  purely  material  interests  to  moral, 
social,  and  spiritual,  we  must  never  lose  sight  of  the 
splendid  fact  that  national  education  is  an  idea  of  '89. 
A  crowd  of  the  great  names  in  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment are  honourably  identified  with  this  sacred  cause. 
Voltaire,  Montesquieu,  Rousseau,  Diderot,  Turgot, 
Condorcet,  d'Argenson,  Mirabeau,  Dan  ton — all  felt  to 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  2O5 

the  depths  of  their  soul  that  the  New  Commonwealth 
could  exist  only  by  an  enlightened  people.  Public 
education  was  the  inspiration  of  the  Encyclopaedia  ;  it 
was  the  gospel  of  '89,  and  the  least  tarnished  of  all  its 
legacies  to  our  age.  In  the  midst  of  the  Terror  and 
the  war,  the  Convention  pursued  its  plans  of  founding 
a  public  education.  The  idea  was  in  no  sense  specially 
French,  in  no  sense  the  direct  work  of  the  revolutionary 
assemblies.  England,  America,  Germany,  Europe  as  a 
whole,  partook  of  the  new  conception  of  the  duties 
of  the  State.  It  belongs  to  the  second  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century  altogether.  But  of  all  the  enthusiasts 
for  popular  education,  there  are  no  names  which  will 
survive  longer  in  the  roll  of  the  benefactors  of  humanity 
than  those  of  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Diderot,  Turgot,  and 
Condorcet. 

9.  With  popular  education  there  went  quite  naturally 
a  series  of  social  institutions  of  a  philanthropic  sort. 
Hospitals,  asylums,  poor-houses,  museums,  libraries, 
galleries  of  art  and  science,  public  parks,  sanitary 
appliances,  and  public  edifices,  were  no  longer  matters 
of  royal  caprice,  or  of  casual  benefaction  :  they  became 
the  serious  work  of  imperial  and  municipal  government. 
Almost  everything  which  we  know  as  modern  civilisa- 
tion in  these  social  institutions  has  taken  organic  shape 
and  systematic  form  within  these  hundred  years.  Ex- 
cept for  its  royal  palaces,  Paris  in  the  opening  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  a  squalid,  ill-ordered,  second- 
rate  city.  Marseilles,  Lyons,  Bordeaux,  had  neither 
dignity,  beauty,  nor  convenience.  Except  for  a  few 
royal  foundations,  neither  France,  nor  its  capital,  was 
furnished  with  more  than  the  meagrest  appliances  of 
public  health  and  charitable  aid.  The  care  of  the  sick, 
of  the  weak,  of  the  destitute,  of  children,  of  the  people, 


206  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

the  emancipation  of  the  negro — all  this  is  essentially  an 
idea  of  '89. 

10.  To  sum  up  all  these  reforms  we  must  conclude 
with  that  of  the  Church.  The  Church  of  France  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  if  it  were  one  of  the  most  splendid 
and  the  most  able,  was  the  most  arrogant  and  oppressive 
survival  of  the  old  Mediaeval  Catholicism.  With  an 
army  of  more  than  50,000  priests,  and  some  50,000 
persons  in  monasteries  and  bound  by  religious  vows, 
owning  one-fifth  of  the  soil  of  France,  with  a  revenue 
which,  in  the  values  of  to-day,  approached  ten  millions 
sterling,  with  personal,  territorial,  and  legal  privileges 
without  number,  the  Gallican  Church  in  the  age  of 
Voltaire  and  Diderot  was  a  portent  of  pride,  tyranny, 
and  intolerance.  A  Church  which,  down  to  1766,  could 
still  put  Protestants  to  death  with  revolting  cruelty, 
which  is  stained  with  the  damning  memories  of  Calas 
and  La  Barre,  which  was  almost  as  corrupt  as  the 
nobility,  almost  as  oppressive  as  the  royalty,  which 
added  to  the  barbarism  of  the  ancien  regime  the  savage 
traditions  of  the  Inquisition,  which  left  undone  all  that 
it  ought  to  have  done,  and  did  all  that  it  ought  not  to 
have  done — such  a  Church  cumbered  the  earth.  It  fell, 
and  loud  and  great  was  the  crash,  and  fierce  have  been 
the  waitings  which  still  fill  the  air  over  its  ruins.  The 
world  has  heard  enough  and  too  much  of  Voltaire's 
curse  against  rinfdme,  of  Diderot's  ferocious  distich, 
how  the  entrails  of  the  last  priest  should  serve  as  halter 
to  the  last  king.  No  one  to-day  justifies  the  fury  of 
their  diatribes,  except  by  reminding  the  nineteenth 
century  what  it  was  that,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  was 
called  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  Church  fell,  but  it 
returned  again.  It  revived  transformed,  reformed,  and 
shorn  of  its  pretensions.  Its  intolerance  has  been 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION    OF    1789   DID  2O? 

utterly  stript  off  it.  It  is  now  but  one  of  other  endowed 
sects.  It  has  less  than  one-fifth  of  its  old  wealth,  none 
of  its  old  intolerable  prerogatives,  and  but  a  shadow  of 
its  old  pretensions  and  pride. 

The  present  essay  proposes  to  deal  with  the  social 
and  political  aspect  of  the  movement  of  1789,  not  with 
the  wide  and  subtle  field  of  the  intellectual  and  humani- 
tarian movement  which  was  its  prelude  and  spiritual 
director.  But  a  short  notice  is  needed  of  the  principal 
leaders  of  thought  by  whom  the  social  and  political 
work  was  inspired.  For  practical  purposes  they  may 
be  grouped  under  four  general  heads.  There  was  the 
work  of  destroying  the  old  elements,  and  the  work  of 
constructing  the  new.  The  work  was  intellectual  and 
religious  on  the  one  hand,  social  and  political  on  the 
other.  This  suggests  a  fourfold  division  :  (i)  the  school 
of  thought  whereby  the  old  intellectual  system  was 
discredited  ;  (2)  that  by  which  the  old  political  system 
was  destroyed  ;  (3)  those  who  laboured  to  construct 
a  new  intellectual  and  moral  basis  of  society ;  and  (4) 
those  who  sought  to  construct  a  new  social  and  political 
system.  These  schools  and  teachers,  writers  and 
politicians,  cannot  be  rigidly  separated  from  each  other. 
Each  overlaps  the  other,  and  most  of  them  combine  the 
characteristics  of  all  in  more  or  less  degree.  The  most 
pugnacious  of  the  critics  did  something  in  the  way  of 
reconstructing  the  intellectual  basis.  The  most  con- 
structive spirits  of  the  new  world  did  much  both  directly 
and  indirectly  to  destroy  the  old.  Critics  of  the 
orthodox  faith  were  really  destroying  the  throne  and  the 
ancient  rule,  even  when  they  least  designed  it.  Ortho- 
dox supporters  of  radical  reforms  rung  the  knell  of  the 
mediaeval  faith  as  much  as  that  of  the  mediaeval  society. 
The  spiritual  and  temporal  organisation  of  human  life 


208  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

had    grown    up   together ;    and    in   death    it   was    not 
divided. 

All  through  the  eighteenth  century  the  intellectual 
movement  was  gathering  vitality  and  volume.  From 
the  opening  years  of  the  epoch  the  genius  of  Leibnitz 
saw  the  inevitable  effect  the  movement  must  have  upon 
the  old  society  ;  and,  in  his  memorable  prophecy  of  the 
Revolution  at  hand  (1704),  he  warned  the  chiefs  of  that 
society  to  prepare  for  the  storm.  For  three  generations 
France  seemed  to  live  only  in  thought.  Action 
descended  to  the  vilest  and  most  petty  level  which  her 
history  had  ever  reached.  From  the  death  of  Colbert, 
in  1683,  until  the  ministry  of  Turgot,  in  1774,  France 
seemed  to  have  lost  the  race  of  great  statesmen,  and  to 
be  delivered  over  to  the  intriguer  and  the  sycophant. 
Well  may  the  historian  say  that  in  passing  from  the 
politicians  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  to  the  thinkers  of 
the  same  epoch,  we  seem  to  be  passing  from  the  world 
of  the  pigmies  to  that  of  the  Titans.  Into  the  world  of 
ideas  France  flung  herself  with  passion  and  with  hope. 
The  wonderful  accumulation  of  scientific  discoveries 
which  followed  the  achievements  of  Newton  reacted 
powerfully  on  religious  thought,  and  even  on  practical 
policy.  Mathematics,  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry, 
biology,  began  to  assume  the  outlined  proportion  of 
coherent  sciences  ;  and  some  vague  sense  of  their  con- 
nection and  real  unity  filled  the  mind  of  all.  Out  of 
the  physical  sciences  there  emerged  a  dim  conception 
of  a  crowning  human  science,  which  it  was  the  grand 
achievement  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  found.  His- 
tory ceased  to  be  a  branch  of  literature ;  it  began  to 
have  practical  uses  for  mankind  of  to-day  ;  and  slowly 
it  was  recognised  as  the  momentous  life-story  of  man, 
the  autobiography  of  the  human  race.  Europe  no 


2(X) 

longer  absorbed  the  interest  of  cultivated  thought.  The 
unity  of  the  planet,  the  community  of  all  who  dwell  on 
it,  gave  a  new  colour  to  the  whole  range  of  thought ; 
and  as  the  old  dogmas  of  the  supernatural  Church 
began  to  lose  their  hold  on  the  mind,  the  new-born 
enthusiasm  of  humanity  began  to  fill  all  hearts. 

The  indefatigable  genius  who  was  the  acknowledged 
leader  in  the  intellectual  attack  undoubtedly  partook  in 
a  measure  of  all  the  four  elements  just  mentioned,  and 
his  true  glory  is  that,  throughout  the  whole  range  of  his 
varied  work,  this  enthusiasm  of  humanity  glows  con- 
stantly aflame  and  warms  his  zeal.  The  almost  unex- 
ampled versatility  and  fecundity  of  Voltaire's  mind  gave 
his  contemporaries  the  impression  of  a  far  larger  genius 
than  the  test  of  time  has  been  able  to  concede  him. 
His  merit  has  been  said  to  lie  in  a  most  extraordinary 
combination  of  secondary  powers,  no  one  of  which  was 
precisely  of  the  highest  class.  He  was  neither  one  of 
the  great  poets,  or  observers,  or  philosophers,  or  teachers 
of  men,  though  he  wielded,  and  for  a  longer  time,  the 
most  potent  literary  power  of  which  history  tells.  Al- 
though of  the  four  main  schools  into  which  the  eighteenth 
century  movement  may  be  grouped,  Voltaire  was  espe- 
cially marked  out  as  the  leading  spirit  of  the  intellectual 
attack,  he  did  not  a  little  to  stimulate  the  constructive 
task,  both  in  its  philosophical  and  in  its  social  side.  It 
is  from  Voltaire's  visit  to  England  in  1726  that  we  must 
date  the  opening  of  the  grand  movement  of  '89.  The 
accumulating  series  of  impulses  which  at  last  forced  on 
the  opening  of  the  States-General  at  Versailles  began 
with  English  ideas,  English  teachers,  and  English  or 
American  traditions. 

At  the  same  time  (1724-1731)  was  formed  in  the 
Place  Vendome  with  the  aid  of  Lord  Bolingbroke,  the 

o 


210  THE   MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

confraternity  of  reformers,  to  whom  he  gave  the  English 
name  of  club.  This  was  the  first  appearance  in  France 
of  an  institution  which  has  played  so  large  a  part  in  the 
history  of  Europe,  which  is  destined  yet  to  play  an  even 
larger  part.  The  Abb£  Alari,  the  Abbe  Saint- Pierre, 
the  Marquis  d'Argenson,  and  their  companions  in  the 
Club  de  1'Entresol  were  already,  sixty  years  before  the 
opening  of  Revolution,  covering  the  ground  of  the  social 
ideas  of  '89,  in  a  vague,  timid,  and  tentative  manner,  it 
may  be,  but  withal  in  a  spirit  of  enthusiastic  zeal  of  the 
better  time  they  were  not  destined  to  see. 

Of  this  group  of  premature  reformers,  of  these  pre- 
cursors and  heralds  of  '89,  none  is  more  illustrious  than 
the  Marquis  d'Argenson,  nor  is  any  book  more  memor- 
able than  his  Reflections  on  the  Government  of  France 
(1739).  Here  we  have  the  germ  of  the  democratic 
absolutism  which  has  again  and  again  reasserted  its 
strength  in  France :  here  are  the  germs  of  the  local 
administration  ;  here  is  the  first  proposal  for  the  sym- 
metrical system  of  eighty-six  departments  which  since 
1790  replaced  the  ancient  provinces  with  all  their  ano- 
malies. Here  also  is  the  repudiation  by  an  illustrious 
noble  of  the  privileges  of  nobility,  the  condemnation  of 
local  restrictions  on  trade,  and  the  dream  of  a  new 
France  where  personal  equality  should  reign,  and  where 
the  cultivator  of  the  soil  should  be  lord  of  the  land  he 
tilled. 

The  chief  spirit  of  the  social  and  political  destructives 
was  as  obviously  Rousseau  as  Voltaire  had  been  the 
chief  spirit  of  the  religious  destructives.  Our  business 
for  the  moment  is  with  neither  of  these  schools  and  with 
neither  of  these  famous  men.  As  all  heterodoxy  seemed 
to  be  latent  in  the  mordant  criticism  of  Voltaire,  so  all 
subsequent  political  anarchy  seems  to  be  concentrated  in 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  211 

the  morbid  passion  of  Rousseau.  But  though  Rousseau 
must  be  regarded  as  in  all  essentials  a  destructive,  there 
are  many  ways  in  which  he  had  a  share  in  the  construc- 
tive movement  of  '89.  In  the  splendour  of  his  pleading 
for  education,  for  respecting  the  dignity  of  the  citizen,  in 
his  passion  for  art,  in  his  pathetic  dreams  of  an  ideal 
simplicity  of  life,  in  his  spiritual  Utopia  of  a  higher  and 
more  humane  humanity,  prophet  of  anarchy  as  he  was, 
Rousseau  has  here  and  there  added  a  stone  to  the  edifice 
we  are  still  building  to-day. 

When  we  turn  to  the  constructive  schools,  there  we 
find  Diderot  supreme  in  the  intellectual  world,  Turgot 
in  the  political ;  whilst  Condorcet  is  the  disciple  and 
complement  of  both.  With  the  purely  philosophical 
work  of  any  of  these  three  we  are  not  now  concerned. 
Our  interest  is  entirely  with  the  social  and  political 
question.  And  at  first  sight  it  may  seem  that  Diderot 
has  no  share  in  any  but  the  philosophical.  But  this 
most  universal  genius  had  a  mind  open  to  all  sides  of 
the  human  problem.  His  grand  task  the  Encyclopedic 
(and  we  may  remember  that  the  first  idea  of  it  came  from 
an  English  Encyclopaedia,  which  it  was  proposed  to 
translate),  the  Encyclopedic  is  largely,  and  indeed  mainly, 
concerned  with  economic  and  social  matters.  Through- 
out it  runs  the  potent  principle  of  the  unity  of  man's 
knowledge,  of  man's  life,  and  of  the  whole  human  race. 
Diderot  does  far  more  than  discuss  abstract  questions  of 
science.  He  traces  out  the  ramifications  of  science  into 
the  minutest  and  humblest  operations  of  industry. 
In  the  Encyclopaedia  we  have  installed  for  the  first  time 
on  authority  that  conception  of  modern  times — the 
marriage  of  Science  with  Industry.  Machines,  trades, 
manufactures,  implements,  tools,  processes  were  each  in 
turn  the  object  of  Diderot's  enthusiastic  study.  He  and 


212  TIIK   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

his  comrades,  men  like  Turgot,  d'Alembert,  Condorcet, 
felt  that  the  true  destiny  of  man  was  the  industrial.  They 
strove  to  place  labour  on  its  right  level,  to  dignify  its 
task,  and  to  glorify  its  mission.  Never  had  philosophy 
been  greater  than  when  she  girt  up  her  robes,  penetrated 
into  the  workshop,  and  shed  her  light  upon  the  patient  toil 
of  the  handicraftsman.  For  the  first  time  in  modern 
history  thought  and  science  took  labour  to  their  arms. 
Industry  received  its  true  honour,  and  was  installed  in  a 
new  sphere.  It  was  a  momentous  step  in  the  progress 
of  society  as  much  as  in  the  progress  of  thought. 

Chief  of  all  the  political  reformers,  in  many  things 
the  noblest  type  of  the  men  of  '89,  is  the  great  Turgot ; 
he,  who  if  France  could  have  been  spared  a  revolution, 
was  the  one  man  that  could  have  saved  her.  After  him, 
Necker,  a  much  inferior  man,  though  with  equally  good 
intentions,  attempted  the  same  task  ;  and  the  years 
from  1774-1781  sufficed  to  show  that  reform  without 
revolution  was  impossible.  But  the  twenty  years  of 
noble  effort,  from  the  hour  when  Turgot  became  intend- 
ant  of  Limoges  in  1761  until  the  fall  of  Necker's  minis- 
try in  1781,  contained  an  almost  complete  rehearsal, 
were  a  prelude  and  epitome,  of  the  practical  reforms 
which  the  Revolution  accomplished  after  so  much  blood 
and  such  years  of  chaos.  To  give  the  official  career  of 
Turgot  would  be  a  summary  of  the  ideas  of  '89.  The 
suppression  of  the  corvte,  of  the  restrictions  on  industry, 
on  the  resources  of  locomotion,  the  restoration  of 
agriculture,  to  reduce  the  finances  to  order,  to  diminish 
public  debt,  to  establish  local  municipal  life,  to  reorgan- 
ise the  chaotic  administration,  to  remove  the  exemptions 
of  the  noble  and  ecclesiastical  orders,  to  suppress  the 
monastic  orders,  to  equalise  the  taxation,  to  establish  a 
scientific  and  uniform  code  of  law,  a  scientific  and  uniform 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789  DID  213 

scale  of  weights  and  measures,  to  reform  the  feudal  land 
law,  to  abolish  the  feudal  gilds  and  antiquated  corpora- 
tions whose  obsolete  pretensions  crushed  industry,  to 
recall  the  Protestants,  to  establish  entire  freedom  of 
conscience,  to  guarantee  complete  liberty  of  thought ; 
lastly,  to  establish  a  truly  national  system  of  education 
— such  were  the  plans  of  Turgot  which  for  two  short 
years  he  struggled  to  accomplish  with  heroic  tenacity 
and  elevation  of  spirit.  Those  two  years,  from  1774- 
1776,  are  at  once  the  brightest  and  the  saddest  in  the 
modern  history  of  France.  For  almost  the  first  time, 
and  certainly  for  the  last  time,  a  great  philosopher,  who 
was  also  a  great  statesman,  the  last  French  statesman  of 
the  old  order,  held  for  a  moment  almost  absolute  power. 
It  was  a  gigantic  task,  and  a  giant  was  called  in  to 
accomplish  it.  But  against  folly  even  the  gods  contend 
in  vain.  And  before  folly,  combined  with  insatiable 
selfishness,  lust,  greed,  and  arrogance,  the  heroic  Turgot 
fell.  They  refused  him  his  bloodless,  orderly,  scientific 
Revolution  ;  and  the  bloody,  stormy,  spasmodic  Revolu- 
tion began. 

To  recall  Turgot  is  to  recall  Condorcet,  the  equal  of 
Turgot  as  thinker,  if  inferior  to  Turgot  as  statesman. 
Around  the  mind  and  nature  of  Condorcet  there  lingers 
the  halo  of  a  special  grace.  Sprung  from  an  old  baron- 
ial family  with  bigoted  prejudices  of  feudal  right,  the 
young  noble,  from  his  youth,  broke  through  the  opposition 
of  his  order  to  devote  himself  to  a  life  of  thought.  Spot- 
less in  his  life,  calm,  reserved,  warm  hearted  and  tender, 
'  the  volcano  covered  with  snow '  that  flamed  in  his 
breast,  had  never  betrayed  him  to  an  outburst  of  jeal- 
ousy, vanity,  ill-humour,  or  extravagance.  The  courtly 
and  polished  aristocrat,  without  affectation  and  without 
hysterics,  bore  himself  as  one  of  the  simplest  of  the 


214  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

people.  The  privileges  of  the  old  system,  which  were 
his  birthright,  filled  him  with  a  sense  of  unmixed  abhor- 
rence. His  scepticism,  vehement  as  it  was,  did  not 
spring  from  intellectual  pride  or  from  turbulent  vanity. 
He  disbelieves  in  orthodoxy  out  of  genuine  thirst  for 
truth,  and  denounces  superstition  out  of  no  alloy  of 
feeling  save  that  of  burning  indignation  at  its  evil  works. 
The  Life  of  Turgot  by  Condorcet,  1787,  might  serve 
indeed  as  prologue  to  the  memorable  drama  which  opens 
in  1789.  It  was  most  fitting  that  the  mighty  movement 
should  be  heralded  by  the  tale  of  the  greatest  statesman 
of  the  age  of  Louis  XVI.,  told  by  one  of  its  chief  thinkers. 
And  the  fine  lines  of  Lucan,  which  Condorcet  placed  as 
a  motto  on  the  title-page  of  his  Life  of  Turgot,  may 
serve  as  the  device,  not  of  Turgot  alone,  but  of  Condor- 
cet himself,  and  indeed  of  the  higher  spirits  of  '89 
together — 

'  Secta  fuit  servare  modum,  finemque  tenere, 
Naturamque  sequi,  patriaeque  impendere  vitam  ; 
Nee  sibi,  sed  toti  genitum  se  credere  mundo.' 

'  The  only  party  they  acknowledged  was  the  rule  of 
good  sense,  and  to  keep  firm  to  their  purpose,  to  submit 
to  the  teaching  of  Nature's  law,  and  to  offer  up  their 
lives  for  their  country — holding  that  man  is  born  not 
for  himself,  but  for  humanity  in  the  sum.'  He  who 
would  understand  what  men  mean  by  '  the  ideas  of  '89 ' 
should  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest  those  two  small 
books  of  Condorcet,  the  Life  of  Turgot,  1787,  and  the 
Historical  Sketch  of  the  Progress  of  the  Human  Mind, 

1795- 

The  annals  of  literature  have  no  more  pathetic  incident 
than  the  history  of  this  little  book — this  still  unfinished 
vision  of  a  brain  prematurely  cut  off.  In  the  midst  of 


WHAT   THE   REVOLUTION   OF    1789   DID  215 

the  struggle  between  Mountain  and  Gironde,  Condorcet 
who  stood  between  both  and  who  belonged  to  neither, 
he  who  had  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Mountain  without  its 
ferocity,  the  virtues  and  culture  of  the  Girondists  without 
their  pedantic  formalism,  was  denounced  and  condemned 
to  death,  and  dragged  out  a  few  weeks  of  life  in  a  miser- 
able concealment.      There,  with  death  hanging  round 
him,  he  calmly  compiled  the  first  true  sketch  of  human 
evolution.  Amidst  the  chaos  and  bloodshed  he  reviews  the 
history  of  mankind.    Not  a  word  of  pain,  doubt,  bitterness, 
or  reproach  is  wrung  from  him.     He  sees  nothing  but 
visions  of  a  happy  and  glorious  future  for  the  race,  when 
war  shall  cease,  and  the  barriers  shall  fall  down  between 
man  and  man,  class  and  class,  race  and  race,  when  man 
shall  pursue  a  regenerate  life  in  human  brotherhood  and 
confidence  in  truth.    Industry  there  shall  be  the  common 
lot,  and  the  noblest  privilege.    But  it  shall  be  brightened 
to  all  by  a  common  education,  free,  rational,  and  com- 
prehensive, with  a  lightening  of  the  burdens  of  labour  by 
scientific  appliances  of  life  and  increased  opportunity  for 
culture.   '  Our  hopes,'  he  writes,  in  that  last  lyric  chapter 
of  the  little  sketch,  '  our  hopes  as  to  the  future  of  the 
human  race  may  be  summed  up  in  these  three  points : 
the  raising  of  all  nations  to  a  common  level ;  the  pro- 
gress towards  equality  in  each  separate  people ;    and, 
lastly,  the  practical  amelioration  of  the  lot  of  man.'     '  It 
is  in  the  contemplation  of  such  a  future,'  he  concludes, 
'  that  the  philosopher  may  find  a  safe  asylum  in  all 
troubles,  and  may  live  in  that  true  paradise,  to  which  his 
reason  may  look  forward  with  confidence,  and  which  his 
sympathy  with  humanity  may  invest  with  a  rapture  of 
the  purest  kind.' 

The  ink  of  these  pages  was  hardly  dry  when  the 
writer  by  death  escaped  the  guillotine  to  which  repub- 


2l6  THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

licans  condemned  him  in  the  name  of  liberty.  How 
many  of  us  can  repeat  a  hundred  anecdotes  of  the 
guillotine,  of  its  victims,  and  its  professors,  yet  how  few 
of  us  have  seriously  taken  to  heart  the  Sketch  of  Human 
Progress  \  The  blood  is  dried  up,  but  the  book  lives, 
and  human  progress  continues  on  the  lines  there  so  pro- 
phetically traced.  '  I  have  studied  history  long,'  says  de 
Tocqueville,  'yet  I  have  never  read  of  any  revolution 
wherein  there  may  be  found  men  of  patriotism  so 
sincere,  of  such  true  devotion  of  self,  of  more  entire 
grandeur  of  spirit.' 


CHAPTER   VII 

FRANCE   IN    1789   AND    1889 l 

THE  year  of  centenaries  has  brought  us  no  memento 
more  significant  than  the  timely  reissue  of  Arthur 
Young's  Travels  in  France  in  i/Sy-SQ.2  Europe  has 
seen  in  this  century  nothing  more  striking,  and  hardly 
any  single  thing  more  entirely  blessed,  than  the  trans- 
figuration of  rural  France  from  its  state  under  the 
ancient  monarchy  to  its  state  under  the  new  republic. 
By  good  luck  an  English  traveller,  with  rare  oppor- 
tunities and  almost  a  touch  of  genius,  traversed  every 
province  just  on  the  eve  of  the  great  crisis,  and  left  to 
mankind  a  vivid  picture  of  all  he  saw.  '  Vehement, 
plain-spoken  Arthur  Young,'  says  Carlyle,  who,  in  his 
lurid  chapter  on  the  '  General  Overturn,'  has  made 
household  words  out  of  several  of  Arthur's  historic 
sayings.  'That  wise  and  honest  traveller,'  says  John 
Morley,  perhaps,  with  rather  excessive  praise,  '  with  his 
luminous  criticism  of  the  most  important  side  of  the 
Revolution,  worth  a  hundred  times  more  than  Burke, 
Paine,  and  Mackintosh  all  put  together.' 

1  The  Forum,  New  York,  vol.  ix.     March  1890. 

2  Travels  in  France,  by  Arthur  Young,  during  the  years  178/1  I7^8, 
1789,    with    an    Introduction,    Biographical    Sketch,    and    Notes,    by 
M.    Betham-Edwards.      London:    G.    Bell   and    Sons,    1889.       Bohn's 
Standard    Library,  N.S.  ;   also  France  of  To-day,  a  survey  comparative 
and    retrospective,    by   M.     Betham-Edwards.        London :    Rivingtons. 
2  vols.     1892-94. 


2l8  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

And  now  a  lady  who  has  seen  more  of  France  than 
even  Arthur  Young,  Miss  Betham-Edwards,  has  given 
us  an  excellent  edition  of  the  famous  Travels,  so  long 
practically  inaccessible,  with  notes,  illustrations,  refer- 
ences, and  a  vignette  picture  of  rural  France  in  1889 
such  as  old  Arthur  himself  might  have  limned,  had  he 
returned  to  earth  and  to  France  to  see  the  great  Exhi- 
bition. The  contrast,  as  we  look  first  on  this  picture 
and  then  on  that,  is  the  transition  we  find  in  a  dream 
or  a  fairy  tale.  It  is  as  though  one  rose  from  the  dead. 
We  see  the  sombre,  haggard,  crushed  French  peasant 
of  Languedoc,  Poitou,  or  Franche  Comt£,  that  Lazarus 
whom  the  old  system  swathed  in  cerecloth  and  en- 
tombed, starting  forth  into  life  from  his  bonds,  and 
returning  to  his  home,  to  activity,  and  to  freedom.  It 
is  the  Revolution  that  has  worked  this  miracle.  This  is 
the  only  work  of  the  Revolution  that  is  wholly  blessed. 
Here,  at  any  rate,  it  has  destroyed  almost  nothing  that 
was  good,  and  has  founded  little  that  is  evil.  '  The 
Revolution,'  says  the  editor  of  these  Travels,  '  in  a  few 
years  metamorphosed  entire  regions.' 

What  life,  what  heart,  what  ring  there  was  in  the 
racy  sayings  of  the  fine  old  boy !  Every  one  knows 
that  sharp  word  wrung  from  him  even  while  he  was  the 
guest  of  the  Duke  de  la  Rochefoucauld  :  '  Whenever 
you  stumble  on  a  grand  seigneur,  you  are  sure  to  find 
his  property  a  desert.'  The  signs  of  the  greatness  of  a 
grand  seigneur  are  '  wastes,  deserts,  fern,  ling.'  '  Oh  ! 
if  I  was  the  legislator  of  France  for  a  day,  I  would 
make  such  great  lords  skip  again.'  '  The  crop  of  this 
country  is  princes  of  the  blood  ;  that  is  to  say,  hares, 
pheasants,  deer,  boars.'  Schoolboys  in  France  can 
repeat  the  historic  passage  about  the  woman  near  Mars- 
la-Tour,  aged  twenty-eight,  but  so  bent  and  furrowed 


FRANCE   IN    1789  AND    1889  219 

and  hardened  by  labour  that  she  looked  sixty  or  seventy, 
as  she  groaned  out :  '  Sir,  the  taxes  and  the  dues  are 
crushing  us  to  death  ! '  No  one,  says  he,  can  imagine 
what  the  French  peasant  woman  has  come  to  look 
under  grinding  poverty.  He  tells  of  '  some  things  that 
called  themselves  women,  but  in  reality  were  walking 
dunghills ' ;  '  girls  and  women  without  shoes  or  stock- 
ings.' '  The  ploughmen  at  their  work  have  neither 
sabots,  nor  feet  to  their  stockings.  This  is  a  poverty 
that  strikes  at  the  root  of  national  prosperity.'  And 
then  comes  that  scathing  phrase  which  rings  in  the  ears 
of  Englishmen  to-day  :  '  It  reminds  me  of  the  misery  of 
Ireland.' 

The  poor  people's  habitations  he  finds  in  Brittany  to 
be  '  miserable  heaps  of  dirt.'  There,  as  so  often  else- 
where in  France,  no  glass  window,  scarcely  any  light ; 
the  women  furrowed  without  age  by  labour.  '  One- 
third  of  what  I  have  seen  of  this  province  seems  uncul- 
tivated, and  nearly  all  of  it  in  misery.'  '  Nothing  but 
privileges  and  poverty.'  And  every  one  remembers  what 
these  privileges  were — '  these  tortures  of  the  peasantry ' 
he  calls  them — of  which  in  one  sentence  he  enumerates 
twenty-eight. 

And  now,  in  1889,  turn  to  these  same  provinces,  to 
the  third  generation  in  descent  from  these  very  peasants. 
'  The  desert  that  saddened  Arthur  Young's  eyes,'  writes 
Miss  Betham-Edwards  to-day,  '  may  now  be  described 
as  a  land  of  Goshen,  overflowing  with  milk  and  honey.' 
'  The  land  was  well  stocked  and  cultivated,  the  people 
were  neatly  and  appropriately  dressed,  and  the  signs  of 
general  contentment  and  well-being  delightful  to  con- 
template.' In  one  province,  a  million  acres  of  waste 
land  have  been  brought  into  cultivation.  In  five  or 
six  years,  wrote  the  historian  Mignet, 'the  Revolution 


220  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

quadrupled  the  resources  of  civilisation.'  Where  Arthur 
Young  saw  the  miserable  peasant  woman,  Miss  Betham- 
Edwards  tells  us  that  to-day  the  farmers'  daughters 
have  for  portions  'several  thousand  pounds.'  What 
Arthur  Young  calls  an  '  unimproved,  poor,  and  ugly 
country,'  Miss  Betham-Edwards  now  finds  to  be  '  one 
vast  garden.'  In  the  landes,  where  the  traveller  saw 
nearly  a  hundred  miles  of  continuous  waste,  700,000 
acres  have  been  fertilised  by  canals,  and  a  very  small 
portion  remains  in  the  state  in  which  he  found  it. 
'  Maine  and  Anjou  have  the  appearance  of  deserts,' 
writes  the  traveller  of  1789.  'Sunny,  light-hearted, 
dance-loving  Anjou'  appears  to  the  traveller  of  1889  a 
model  of  prosperity  and  happiness.  Where  he  found 
the  peasants  living  in  caves  underground,  she  finds 
neat  homesteads  costing  more  than  6000  francs  to 
build.  In  Dauphine,  where  he  finds,  in  1789,  moun- 
tains waste  or  in  a  great  measure  useless,  she  finds,  in 
1889,  choice  vineyards  that  sell  at  25,000  francs  per 
acre. 

And  what  has  done  all  this  ?  The  prophetic  soul  of 
Arthur  Young  can  tell  us,  though  a  hundred  years  were 
needed  to  make  his  hopes  a  reality.  His  words  have 
passed  into  a  household  phrase  where  the  English 
tongue  reaches  :  '  The  magic  of  property  turns  sand  to 
gold.'  '  The  inhabitants  of  this  village  deserve  en- 
couragement for  their  industry,'  he  writes  of  Sauve, 
'  and  if  I  was  a  French  minister  they  should  have  it. 
They  would  soon  turn  all  the  deserts  around  them  into 
gardens.'  '  Give  a  man/  he  adds,  in  a  phrase  which  is 
now  a  proverb,  '  the  secure  possession  of  a  bleak  rock, 
and  he  will  turn  it  into  a  garden  ;  give  him  a  nine- 
years'  lease  of  a  garden,  and  he  will  convert  it  into  a 
desert.'  What  has  made  all  this  misery  ?  he  cries  again 


FRANCE   IN    1789  AND    1889  221 

and  again  ;  what  has  blighted  this  magnificent  country, 
and  crushed  this  noble  people?  Misgovernment,  bad 
laws,  cruel  customs,  wanton  selfishness  of  the  rich,  the 
powerful,  and  the  privileged.  Nothing  was  ever  said 
more  true.  Arthur  Young's  good  legislator  came  even 
sooner  than  he  dared  to  hope,  armed  with  a  force  more 
tremendous  than  he  could  conceive.  It  was  a  minister 
greater  than  any  Turgot,  or  Necker,  or  Mirabeau  ;  who 
served  a  sovereign  more  powerful  than  Louis  or 
Napoleon.  His  sovereign  was  the  Revolution ;  the 
minister  was  the  new  system.  And  the  warm-hearted 
English  gentleman  lived  to  see  his  'great  lords  skip 
again '  somewhat  too  painfully.  The  storm  has  passed, 
the  blood  is  washed  out ;  but  the  '  red  fool-fury  of  the 
Seine '  has  made  rural  France  the  paradise  of  the 
peasant. 

Let  us  take  a  typical  bit  of  the  country  here  and 
there  and  compare  its  state  in  1789  arid  in  1889.  From 
Paris  and  Orleans  Arthur  Young,  in  1787,  journeyed 
southward  through  Berri  and  the  Limousin  to  Toulouse. 
His  diary  is  one  cry  of  pity.  '  The  fields  are  scenes 
of  pitiable  management,  as  the  houses  are  of  misery.' 
'  Heaven  grant  me  patience  while  I  see  a  country  thus 
neglected,  and  forgive  me  the  oaths  I  swear  at  the 
absence  and  ignorance  of  the  possessors.'  'The  hus- 
bandry poor  and  the  people  miserable.'  'The  poor 
people  who  cultivate  the  soil  here  are  metayers,  that  is, 
men  who  hire  the  soil  without  ability  to  stock  it — a 
miserable  system  that  perpetuates  poverty  and  excludes 
instruction.' 

Turn  to  our  traveller  of  1889.  Berri,  says  Miss 
Betham-Edwards,  has  been  transformed  under  a  sound 
land  system.  It  has  indeed  a  poor  soil ;  but,  even  in 
the  ' triste  Sologne',  plantations,  irrigation  canals,  and 


222  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

improved  methods  of  agriculture  are  transforming  this 
region.  So  rapid  is  the  progress  that  George  Sand, 
who  died  but  the  other  day,  would  hardly  recognise  the 
country  she  has  described  so  well.  Here  and  there 
may  be  seen,  now  used  as  an  out-house,  one  of  those 
bare,  windowless  cabins  which  shocked  Arthur  Young, 
and  close  at  hand  the  '  neat,  airy,  solid  dwellings '  the 
peasant  owners  have  built  for  themselves.  Here  Miss 
Betham-Edwards  visited  newly-made  farms,  with  their 
spick-and-span  buildings,  the  whole  having  the  appear- 
ance of  a  little  settlement  in  the  Far  West.  The  hold- 
ings vary  from  6  to  30  acres,  their  owners  possessing 
a  capital  of  5000  to  8000  and  even  25,000  francs,  the 
land  well  stocked  and  cultivated,  the  people  well  dressed, 
and  signs  of  general  content  and  well-being  delightful 
to  contemplate.  And  as  to  m^tayage^  'that  miserable 
system  which  perpetuates  poverty,'  Miss  Betham- 
Edwards  finds  it  now  one  of  the  chief  factors  of 
the  agricultural  progress  of  France,  creating  cordial 
relations  between  landlord  and  tenant.  The  secret 
of  this  curious  conflict  between  two  most  competent 
observers  is  this :  metayage — the  system  under  which 
the  owner  of  the  soil  finds  land,  stock,  and  implements, 
the  tiller  of  the  farm  finds  manual  labour,  and  all  pro- 
duce is  equally  shared — depends  for  its  fair  working 
upon  just  laws,  equality  before  the  law,  absence  of 
any  privilege  in  the  owner,  and  good  understanding 
as  between  men  who  alike  respect  each  other.  With 
these,  it  is  an  excellent  system  of  farming,  very  favour- 
able to  the  labourer ;  without  these,  it  may  almost 
reduce  him  to  serfdom.  It  may  thus  be  one  of  the 
best,  or  one  of  the  worst,  of  all  systems  of  husbandry. 
As  Arthur  Young  saw  it  under  the  ancient  system  of 
privileged  orders,  it  was  almost  as  bad  as  an  Irish 


FRANCE   IN    1789  AND    1889  223 

tenancy  at  will.  Under  the  new  system  of  post- 
revolutionary  equality,  it  has  given  prosperity  to  large 
tracts  in  France. 

From  Autun  in  Burgundy,  Arthur  Young  travelled 
across  the  Bourbonnais  and  the  Nivernais,  and  he 
found  the  country  '  villainously  cultivated ' ;  when  he 
sees  such  a  country  '  in  the  hands  of  starving  metayers, 
instead  of  fat  farmers,'  he  knows  not  how  to  pity 
the  seigneurs.  To-day,  his  editor  finds  '  fat  farmers ' 
innumerable,  for  metayage  has  greatly  advanced  the 
condition  of  the  peasants.  The  country  that  lies 
between  the  mouths  of  the  Garonne  and  the  Loire  is 
precisely  that  part  of  his  journey  which  wrings  from 
Arthur  Young  his  furious  invective  against  the  great 
lords  whom  he  wished  he  could  make  '  to  skip  again.' 
Now,  the  Gironde,  the  Charente,  and  La  Vendee  are 
thriving,  rich  districts,  intersected  with  railways ;  '  and, 
owing  to  the  indefatigable  labours  of  peasant  owners, 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  of  waste  land  have  been 
put  under  cultivation.' 

Or  turn  to  Brittany,  which  Arthur  Young  calls  'a 
miserable  province ' ;  '  husbandry  not  much  further 
advanced  than  among  the  Hurons '  ;  '  the  people 
almost  as  wild  as  their  country ' ;  '  mud  houses,  no 
windows '  ;  'a  hideous  heap  of  wretchedness ' — all 
through  '  the  execrable  maxims  of  despotism,  or  the 
equally  detestable  prejudices  of  a  feudal  nobility.' 
And  this  is  the  rich,  thriving,  laborious,  and  delightful 
Brittany  which  our  tourists  love,  where  Miss  Betham- 
Edwards  tells  us  of  scientific  farming,  artificial  manures, 
machinery,  'the  granary  of  Western  France,'  market 
gardens,  of  fabulous  value,  and  a  great  agricultural 
college,  one  of  the  most  important  in  Europe. 

Maine  and  Anjou,  through   which  the   Loire  flows 


224  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

below  Tours,  were  deserts  to  Arthur  Young.  Every 
tourist  knows  that  these  provinces  now  look  as  rich 
and  prosperous  as  any  spot  in  Europe.  Miss  Betham- 
Edwards  gives  us  an  almost  idyllic  picture  of  an  Angevin 
farm-house,  with  its  supper,  merriment,  and  dance  ;  and 
tells  of  Angevin  peasants  building  themselves  villas 
with  eight  rooms,  a  flower  garden,  parlour,  kitchen, 
offices,  and  four  airy  bedrooms.  '  The  peasant  wastes 
nothing  and  spends  little  ;  he  possesses  stores  of  home- 
spun linen,  home-made  remedies,  oil,  vinegar,  honey, 
cider,  and  wine  of  his  own  producing.'  '  The  poorest 
eat  asparagus,  green  peas,  and  strawberries  every  day 
in  season  ;  and  as  everybody  owns  crops,  nobody  pilfers 
his  neighbours.'  Universal  ownership  gives  absolute 
security  to  property,  and  pauperism  is  unknown. 

As  in  Berri,  as  in  the  Limousin,  Poitou,  Anjou,  and 
Brittany,  so  elsewhere  throughout  France,  we  find  the 
same  astounding  contrast  between  the  tale  told  by  the 
traveller  of  1789  and  the  traveller  of  1889.  Paris  amazes 
Arthur  Young  by  its  dirtiness  and  discomfort,  and  the 
silence  and  stagnation  of  life  the  instant  he  passes  out 
of  its  narrow  crooked  streets !  To  those  accustomed 
to  the  animation  and  rapid  movement  of  England, 
says  he,  it  is  not  possible  to  describe  '  the  dulness  and 
stupidity  of  France  ! '  To  read  these  words  in  the  year 
of  the  great  Exhibition,  1889,  with  its  26,000,000  tickets 
bought  by  sight-seers  !  In  Champagne  he  pronounces 
his  famous  diatribe  against  government.  Now,  we  all 
know  Champagne  to  be  a  thriving  and  wealthy  country. 
It  was  in  Franche  Comt£  that  Arthur  Young,  being 
surrounded  by  an  angry  crowd,  made  his  famous  speech 
to  them  about  French  and  English  taxation,  and  ex- 
plained the  difference  between  a  seigneur  in  France  and 
in  England.  On  which  side  would  the  difference  lie,  if 


FRANCE   IN    1/89  AND    1889  225 

he  rose  to  make  his  speech  in  the  Doubs  to-day  ?  Arthur 
Young  crosses  France  from  Alsace  to  Auvergne  before 
he  sees  a  field  of  clover ;  but  in  France  to-day  clover  is 
as  common  as  it  is  in  England.  Old  Marseilles  he 
thinks  close,  ill-built,  and  dirty  ;  and  '  the  port  itself  is 
a  horse  pond.'  He  cannot  find  a  conveyance  between 
Marseilles  and  Nice.  Such  great  cities  in  France,  he 
says,  have  not  the  hundredth  part  of  the  means  of 
communication  common  in  much  smaller  places  in 
England.  He  passes  into  the  mountain  region  of 
Upper  Savoy  ;  and  there  he  finds  the  people  at  their 
ease,  and  the  land  productive,  in  spite  of  the  harsh 
climate  and  the  barren  soil.  He  asks  the  reason,  and 
he  learns  that  there  are  no  seigneurs  in  Upper  Savoy. 
In  Lower  Savoy  he  finds  the  people  poor  and  miserable, 
for  there  stands  a  carcan,  a  seigneurial  standard,  with  a 
chain  and  a  heavy  collar,  an  emblem  of  the  slavery  of 
the  people. 

At  Lyons  he  meets  the  Rolands,  though  he  failed  to 
recognise  the  romantic  genius  that  lay  still  hidden  in 
the  young  and  beautiful  wife  of  the  austere  financier. 
At  Lyons  he  is  assured  that  '  the  state  of  manufacture 
is  melancholy  to  the  last  degree.'  And,  as  the  quarter 
now  known  as  Perrache  did  not  yet  exist,  he  finds  the 
city  itself  badly  situated.  As  he  passes  along  the 
Riviera  from  Antibes  to  Nice,  he  is  driven  to  walk,  for 
want  of  a  conveyance,  and  a  woman  carries  his  baggage 
on  an  ass.  At  Cannes  there  is  no  post-house,  carriage, 
horses,  or  mules,  and  he  has  to  walk  through  nine  miles 
of  waste  !  And  so  he  at  last  gets  back  to  Paris.  There 
he  hears  Mirabeau  thunder  in  the  National  Assembly ; 
meets  the  King  and  Queen,  La  Fayette,  Barnave,  Sieyes, 
Condorcet,  and  the  chiefs  of  the ,  Revolution  ;  and  is 
taken  to  the  Jacobin  Club,  of  which  he  is  duly  installed 

p 


226  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

as  a  member.  And  this  wonderful  book  ends  with  a 
chapter  of  general  reflections  on  the  Revolution,  which 
go  more  deeply  down  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  John 
Morley  has  said,  than  all  that  Burke,  Paine,  and 
Mackintosh  piled  up  in  so  many  eloquent  periods. 

The  Revolution  as  a  whole  would  carry  us  far  afield. 
In  these  few  pages  we  are  dealing  with  the  great  trans- 
formation that  it  wrought  in  the  condition  of  the  peasant. 
It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  part  of  the  wonderful 
difference  between  the  peasant  of  the  last  century  and 
the  peasant  of  to-day  is  due  to  the  vast  material 
advancement  common  to  the  civilised  world.  Railroads, 
steam  factories,  telegraphs,  the  enormous  increase  in 
population,  in  manufactures,  commerce,  and  inventions 
were  not  products  of  the  '  principles  of  '89,'  nor  of  the 
Convention,  nor  of  the  Jacobin  Club.  All  Europe  has 
grown,  America  has  grown  almost,  miraculously,  and 
France  has  grown  with  both.  But  the  political  lesson 
of  Arthur  Young's  journey  is  this  :  the  poverty  and  the 
desolation  which  he  saw  in  1789  were  directly  due,  as 
he  so  keenly  felt,  not  to  the  country,  not  to  the 
husbandmen,  not  to  ignorance  or  to  indolence  in  the 
people,  not  to  mere  neglect,  weakness,  or  stupidity  in 
the  central  government,  but  directly  to  bad  laws,  cruel 
privileges,  and  an  oppressive  system  of  tyranny.  Arthur 
Young  found  an  uncommonly  rich  soil,  a  glorious 
climate,  a  thrifty,  ingenious,  and  laborious  people,  a 
strong  central  government  that,  in  places  and  at  times, 
could  make  magnificent  roads,  bridges,  canals,  ports ; 
and  when  a  Turgot,  or  a  Liancourt,  or  a  de  Turbilly 
had  a  free  hand,  a  country  which  could  be  made  one  of 
the  richest  on  the  earth.  What  Arthur  Young  saw, 
with  the  eye  of  true  insight,  was,  that  so  soon  as  these 
evil  laws  and  this  atrocious  system  of  land  tenure  were 


FRANCE   IN    1789  AND    1889  227 

removed,  France  would  be  one  of  the  finest  countries  in 
the  world.     And  Arthur  Young,  as  we  see,  was  right. 

Another  point  is  this  :  to  Arthur  Young,  the  Suffolk 
farmer  of  1789,  everything  he  sees  in  the  peasantry  and 
husbandry  of  France  appears  miserably  inferior  to  the 
peasantry  and  husbandry  of  England.  France  is  a 
country  far  worse  cultivated  than  England,  its  agri- 
cultural produce  miserably  less  ;  its  life,  animation,  and 
means  of  communication  ludicrously  inferior  to  those  of 
England  ;  its  farmers  in  penury,  its  labourers  starving, 
its  resources  barbarous,  compared  with  those  of  England. 
In  an  English  village  more  meat,  he  learns,  is  eaten  in 
a  week,  than  in  a  French  village  in  a  year ;  the  clothing, 
food,  home,  and  intelligence  of  the  English  labourer  are 
far  above  those  of  the  French  labourer.  The  country 
inns  are  infinitely  better  in  England  ;  there  is  ten  times 
the  circulation,  the  wealth,  the  comfort  in  an  English 
rural  district ;  the  English  labourer  is  a  free  man,  the 
French  labourer  little  more  than  a  serf. 

Can  we  say  the  same  thing  of  1889?  Obviously  not. 
The  contrast  to-day  is  reversed.  It  is  the  English 
labourer  who  is  worse  housed,  worse  fed,  clothed, 
taught ;  who  has  nothing  of  his  own,  who  can  never 
save ;  to  whom  the  purchase  of  an  acre  of  land  is  as 
much  an  impossibility  as  of  a  diamond  necklace,  and 
who  may  no  more  think  to  own  a  dairy  than  to  own  a 
race  horse ;  who  follows  the  plough  for  two  shillings  a 
day,  and  ends,  when  he  drops,  in  the  workhouse. 
England  has  increased  in  these  hundred  years  far  more 
than  France  in  population,  in  wealth,  in  commerce,  in 
manufactures,  in  dominion,  in  resources,  in  general 
material  prosperity — in  all  but  in  the  condition  of  her 
rural  labourer.  In  that  she  has  gone  back,  perhaps 
positively  ;  but  relatively  it  is  certain  she  has  gone  very 


228  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

far  back.  The  English  traveller  in  France  to-day  is 
amazed  at  the  wealth,  independence,  and  comfort  of  the 
French  peasant.  To  Miss  Betham-Edwards,  who  knows 
France  well,  it  is  a  land  of  Goshen,  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey  ;  the  life  of  the  peasant  of  Anjou,  Brie,  and 
La  Vendee  is  one  of  idyllic  prosperity  '  delightful  to 
behold.'  The  land  tenure  of  England  in  1789  was,  as 
Young  told  the  mob  in  the  Doubs,  far  in  advance  of 
that  of  France — as  far  as  that  of  France  of  1889  is  in 
advance  of  that  of  England  now.  Our  English  great 
lords  have  not  yet  begun  '  to  skip  again.'  Land  tenure 
in  England  to-day  is  essentially  the  same  as  it  was  in 
1789.  In  France  it  has  been  wholly  transformed  by 
the  Revolution. 

There  are  in  France  now  some  eight  million  persons 
who  own  the  soil,  the  great  mass  of  whom  are  peasants. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  Revolution  did  not  create 
this  peasant  land-ownership,  but  that  in  part  it  goes 
back  to  the  earliest  times  of  French  history.  Turgot, 
Necker,  de  Tocqueville,  and  a  succession  of  historians 
have  abundantly  proved  the  fact.  Arthur  Young  en- 
tirely recognises  the  truth,  and  tells  us  that  one-third 
of  the  soil  of  France  was  already  the  property  of  the 
peasant.  This  estimate  has  been  adopted  by  good  French 
authorities ;  but  Miss  Betham-Edwards  considers  it  an 
over-statement,  and  holds  that  the  true  proportion  in  1789 
was  one-fourth.  In  any  case  it  is  now  much  more  than 
one-half.  Not  but  that  there  is  now  in  France  a  very 
great  number  also  of  large  estates,  and  some  that  are 
immense  when  compared  with  the  standard  of  England 
proper.  It  has  indeed  i<een  estimated  that  positively, 
though  not  relatively,  there  are  more  great  rural  estates 
in  France  to-day  than  there  are  in  England.  The 
notion  that  the  Revolution  has  extinguished  great 


FRANCE   IN    1789  AND    1889  229 

properties  in  France,  is  as  utterly  mistaken  as  the 
notion  that  the  Revolution  created  the  system  of  small 
properties.  The  important  point  is  that  since  the 
Revolution  every  labourer  has  been  able  to  acquire  a 
portion  of  the  soil ;  and  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
adult  population  has  already  so  done. 

It  is  also  likely  that  Young  overrated  the  depth  of 
the  external  discomfort  that  he  saw.  Under  such  a 
brutal  system  of  fiscal  and  manorial  oppression  as  was 
then  rife,  the  farmer  and  the  labourer  carefully  hide 
what  wealth  they  may  have,  and  deliberately  assume 
the  outer  semblance  of  want,  for  fear  of  the  tax-gatherer, 
the  tithe  proctor,  and  the  landlord's  bailiff.  That  has 
been  seen  in  Ireland  for  centuries  and  may  be  still  seen 
to-day.  So  the  French  peasant  was  not  always  so  poor 
as  he  chose  to  appear  in  Arthur  Young's  eyes. 

Another  thing  is  that  the  French  labouring  man, 
and  still  more  the  labouring  woman,  is  a  marvellously 
penurious,  patient,  frugal  creature  who  deliberately,  for 
the  sake  of  thrift,  endures  hard  fare,  uncleanness,  squalor, 
such  as  no  English  or  American  freeman  would  stomach 
except  by  necessity.  The  life  led  by  a  comfortable 
English  or  American  farmer  would  represent  wicked 
waste  and  shameful  indulgence  to  a  much  richer  French 
peasant.  I  myself  know  a  labourer  on  wages  of  less 
than  twenty  shillings  a  week,  who  by  thrift  has  bought 
ten  acres  of  the  magnificent  garden  land  between 
Fontainebleau  and  the  Seine,  worth  many  thousand 
pounds,  on  which  grow  all  kinds  of  fruits  and  vegetables, 
and  the  famous  dessert  grapes  ;  yet  who,  with  all  his 
wealth  and  abundance,  denies  himself  and  his  two 
children  meat  on  Sundays,  and  even  a  drink  of  the 
wine  which  he  grows  and  makes  for  the  market.  I 
know  a  peasant  family  in  Normandy,  worth  in  houses 


230  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

gardens,  and  farms,  at  least  500,000  francs,  who  will 
live  on  the  orts  cast  out  as  refuse  by  their  own  lodgers, 
while  the  wife  and  mother  hires  herself  out  as  a  scullion 
for  two  francs  a  day.  The  penuriousness  of  the  French 
peasant  is  to  English  eyes  a  thing  savage,  bestial,  and 
maniacal. 

The  French  peasant  has  great  virtues  ;  but  he  has  the 
defects  of  his   virtues,  and  his  home  life  is  far  from 
idyllic.     He  is  laborious,  shrewd,  enduring,  frugal,  self- 
reliant,  sober,  honest,  and  capable  of  intense  self-control 
for  a  distant  reward  ;  but  that  reward  is  property  in 
land,  in  pursuit  of  which  he  may  become  as  pitiless  as 
a  bloodhound.      He  is  not  chaste  (indeed  he  is  often 
lecherous),  but  he  relentlessly  keeps  down  the  popula- 
tion, and  can  hardly  bring  himself  to  rear  two  children. 
To  give  these  two  children  a  good  heritage,  he  will 
inflict  great  hardships  on  them  and  on  all  others  whom 
he   controls.     He  has  an  intense  passion  for  his  own 
immediate  locality ;  but  he  loves  his  own  commune,  and 
still    more  his  own  terre,  almost   as    much   as  France. 
He  is  not  indeed  the  monster  that  Zola  paints  in  La 
Terre ;  but  there  is  a  certain  vein  of  Zolaism  in  him, 
and  the  type  may  be  found  in  the  criminal  records  of 
France.     He  is  intelligent ;  but  he  is  not  nearly  so  well 
educated  as  the  Swiss,  or  the  German,  or  the  Hollander. 
He  is  able  to  bear  suffering  without  a  murmur ;  but  he 
has  none  of  that  imperturbable  courage  that  Englishmen 
and  Americans  show  in  a  thousand  new  situations.     He 
is  shrewd  and  far-seeing,  and  a  tough  hand  in  a  bargain  ; 
but   he   has   none   of    the   inventive    audacity   of    the 
American  citizen.     He  is  self-reliant,  but  too  cautious 
to  trust  himself  in  a  new  field.     He  is  independent,  but 
without  the  proud  dignity  of  the  Spanish  peasant.     He 
has  a  love  for  the  gay,  the  beautiful,  and  the  graceful, 


FRANCE   IN    1789   AND    1889  231 

which,  compared  with  that  of  the  Englishman,  is  the 
sense  of  art ;  though  he  has  nothing  of  the  charm  of  the 
Italian,  or  of  the  musical  genius  of  the  German. 

Take  him  for  all  in  all,  he  is  a  strong  and  noteworthy 
force  in  modern  civilisation.  Though  his  country  has 
not  the  vast  mineral  wealth  of  England,  nor  her  gigantic 
development  in  manufactures  and  in  commerce,  he  has 
made  France  one  of  the  richest,  most  solid,  most  pro- 
gressive countries  on  earth.  He  is  quite  as  frugal  and 
patient  as  the  German,  and  is  far  more  ingenious  and 
skilful.  He  has  not  the  energy  of  the  Englishman,  or  the 
elastic  spring  of  the  American,  but  he  is  far  more  saving 
and  much  more  provident.  He  'wastes  nothing,  and 
spends  little';  and  thus,  since  his  country  comes  next  to 
England  and  America  in  natural  resources  and  national 
energy,  he  has  built  up  one  of  the  strongest,  most  self- 
contained,  and  most  durable  of  modern  peoples. 

Since  this  essay  appeared  in  1890,  Miss  Betham- 
Edwards  has  published  her  own  most  valuable  and 
interesting  survey,  her  France  of  To-day,  2  vols.,  1892-94. 
This  book  is  the  result  of  her  exhaustive  study  of  French 
agriculture,  over  twenty-five  years.  It  forms  the  pendant 
to  Arthur  Young,  and  as  being  a  study  exactly  one 
hundred  years  later,  over  the  same  ground  and  embody- 
ing an  even  more  extensive  knowledge  of  France  than 
that  of  the  old  traveller,  it  becomes  a  work  of  rare  value 
to  the  student  of  history  and  of  politics.  Miss  Betham- 
Edwards  is  also  the  well-known  author  of  several  other 
books  of  travel  in  France ;  and  her  readers  rejoice  to 
learn  that  her  life-long  labours  have  received  most 
honourable  recognition  from  the  Government  of  France 
as  well  as  that  of  England. 

Fluctuat   nee  mergitur  should    be   the  motto  not  of 
Paris  but  of  France.      The  indomitable  endurance  of 


232  THE   MEANING  OF   HISTORY 

her  race  has  enabled  her  to  surmount  crushing  disasters, 
losses,  and  disappointments  under  which  another  race 
would  have  sunk.  She  bears  with  ease  a  national  debt 
the  annual  charge  of  which  is  more  than  double  that  of 
wealthy  England,  and  a  taxation  nearly  double  that  of 
England,  with  almost  the  same  population — a  permanent 
taxation  (exceeding  100  francs  per  head)  greater  than 
has  ever  before  been  borne  by  any  people.  She  loses, 
over  one  war,  a  sum  not  much  short  of  the  whole  national 
debt  of  England,  and  she  writes  off,  without  a  murmur, 
a  loss  of  1,200,000,000  francs,  thrown  into  the  Panama 
Canal.  If  France  is  thus  strong,  the  backbone  of  her 
strength  is  found  in  the  marvellous  industry  and  thrift 
of  her  peasantry.  And  if  her  peasantry  are  industrious 
and  thrifty,  it  is  because  the  Revolution  of  '89  has 
secured  to  them  a  position  more  free  and  independent 
than  that  presented  by  any  monarchical  country  on  the 
continent  of  Europe. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

THE   CITY  :   ANCIENT — MEDIEVAL — MODERN — IDEAL 

THE  life  that  men  live  in  the  City  gives  the  type  and 
measure  of  their  civilisation.  The  word  civilisation 
means  the  manner  of  life  of  the  civilised  part  of  the 
community:  i.e.  of  the  city-men,  not  of  the  country-men, 
who  are  called  rustics,  and  once  were  called  pagans,  or 
the  heathens  of  the  villages.  Hence,  inasmuch  as  a 
city  is  a  highly  organised  and  concentrated  type  of  the 
general  life  of  an  epoch  or  people,  if  we  compare  the 
various  types  of  the  city,  we  are  able  to  measure  the 
strength  and  weakness  of  different  kinds  of  civilisation. 

How  enormous  is  the  range  over  which  city-life  ex- 
tends, from  the  first  cave-men  and  dug-out  wigwams  in 
pre- historic  ages  to  the  complex  arrangements  and 
appliances  of  modern  Paris  (which  we  may  take  as  the 
type  of  the  highly  organised  modern  city  of  Europe). 
How  vast  is  the  interval  between  one  kind  of  town-life 
and  another  kind! — say  comparing  Bagdad  with  Chicago, 
or  Naples  with  Staleybridge.  The  differences  in  the 
humblest  forms  of  rural  life  are  far  less  apparent, 
whether  we  deal  with  different  epochs  or  different  races. 
The  ploughman  and  the  shepherd  to-day  on  the  Cots- 
wolds,  or  the  Cheviots,  certainly  the  tenants  of  mud- 
cabins  in  Connemara  or  Skye,  do  not,  in  external  modes 
of  material  life,  differ  so  greatly  from  their  predecessors 


234  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

in  the  days  of  the  Crusades  or  even  of  the  Heptarchy  ; 
and  a  herdsman  of  Anatolia,  of  La  Mancha,  or  of  Kerry, 
eats,  sleeps,  and  works  in  very  similar  ways.  But  how 
vast  is  the  interval  between  the  habits  and  conditions  of 
the  Londoners  who  built  the  Lake-village  of  Llyn-dyn, 
or  the  Parisii  who  staked  out  the  island  of  Loukhteith, 
and  the  modern  Londoner  and  the  modern  Parisian  ! 

The  change  began  with  the  landing  on  the  Thames,  or 
the  Seine,  of  a  few  thousand  men  in  armour  from  the 
Tiber,  led  by  the  greatest  genius  known  to  history,  who 
introduced  the  language,  law,  institutions,  and  discipline 
of  the  greatest  City  recorded  in  history.  In  old  times 
some  of  the  most  famous  cities  in  the  world  were  not  so 
large  as  one  London  parish,  and  not  nearly  so  populous. 
Entire  states,  which  for  centuries  filled  the  page  of  the 
main  history  of  mankind,  did  not  cover  so  much  ground, 
or  contain  so  many  inhabitants,  as  do  London  and  Paris 
to-day.  The  men  of  Athens,  who  passed  their  lives  in 
the  midst  of  the  noblest  creations  of  art,  at  the  broken 
fragments  of  which  we  gaze  in  wonder  and  awe,  men 
who  heard  the  most  sublime  tragedies,  and  took  part  in 
the  most  imposing  ceremonies  ever  devised  by  man,  had 
food,  garments,  and  lodging  so  rough  and  plain  that  we 
should  hardly  think  it  fit  for  a  prison.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  had  as  much  leisure,  were  as  daintily  fastidious 
in  their  tastes,  and  regarded  themselves  as  much  lords 
of  creation,  as  if  they  were  all  officers  in  the  Guards. 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  the  men  who  passed  their  lives 
in  these  gorgeous  cathedrals,  of  which  we  only  see  the 
colourless  shell  to-day,  and  in  that  fantastic  and  chival- 
rous art-life,  of  which  we  only  catch  glimpses  in  some 
old  corner  of  Verona,  Nuremberg,  or  Florence,  lived  in 
streets  and  houses  so  fetid,  cramped,  poisonous,  and 
gloomy,  under  conditions  so  dangerous  to  life  and  limb, 


THE   ANCIENT   CITY  235 

so  full  of  discomfort,  that  many  a  prisoner  would  prefer 
his  warm  cell  in  Pentonville.  And  we,  who  have  railways, 
telephones,  and  newspapers,  who  make  everything  by 
machinery,  except  beauty  and  happiness — we  who  can- 
not drink  a  glass  of  water,  or  teach  children  to  read  and 
write  without  an  army  of  inspectors,  Acts  of  Parliament, 
and  amateur  Professors  of  Social  Science,  to  show  us 
how  to  do  it — we  who,  in  a  man's  life-time,  cover  with 
new  bricks  a  whole  province,  in  area  bigger  than  the 
Attica  of  Pericles,  or  the  Roman  State  of  Coriolanus  : — 
we  lead,  in  some  of  our  huge  manufacturing  cities,  lives 
so  dull  and  mechanical  that  Pericles  or  Coriolanus  would 
have  preferred  exile. 

Out  of  a  vast  range  of  cities,  old  and  new,  it  would  be 
instructive  to  compare  four  types :  the  Ancient  city  of 
Greece  and  Italy — the  Mediaeval  city  of  Catholic  and 
Feudal  times — the  Modern  city  of  England,  France, 
and  America — and  then  the  Ideal  city,  as  we  can  con- 
ceive it  to  be,  in  the  future.  Each  age  has  its  strong 
side,  and  its  weak  side.  It  would  be  impossible  to  bring 
back  any  obsolete  type  of  society :  but  things  may  be 
learned  from  some  of  them.  And,  where  we  have 
horrible  evils  of  our  own  to  conquer,  it  may  be  just  as 
well  to  reflect  on  a  very  different  type  of  life,  under 
other  conceptions  of  nature  and  of  man. 

I.   The  Ancient  City 

Let  us  imagine  ourselves  citizens  of  some  famous  city 
of  Greece  or  Italy  in  the  earlier  ages  before  the  Roman 
Empire — such  a  city  as  Athens,  Corinth,  Syracuse,  or 
Rome  some  centuries  before  Christ.  Our  city  would  be 
at  once  our  Country,  our  Church,  our  Religion — our 
school,  academy,  and  university, — our  museum,  our 


236  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

trade-gild,  our  play-ground,  and  our  club.  The  city 
would  have  been  founded  by  some  god  or  demi-god, 
with  mysterious  and  half-uttered  legends  about  its 
origin  ;  and  the  knowledge  of  these  was  thought  to  be 
confined  to  a  select  few,  who  were  quite  unable  or  un- 
willing to  divulge  it,  legends  preserved  by  quaint  rites 
and  traditional  ceremonials  that  all  reverenced  and 
none  could  explain.  The  city  would  be,  not  only  the 
special  creation  but  the  favourite  home  of  some  great 
god  ;  it  would  be  also  the  chosen  abode  of  a  company 
of  minor  gods  and  heroes  whose  images,  altars,  sanctu- 
aries, groves,  fountains,  caves,  or  rocks,  would  lie  thickly 
around  and  be  chiefly  grouped  about  the  citadel.  There 
would  be  the  olive  that  sprang  from  the  ground  at  the 
stroke  of  Athene's  spear,  the  water  of  some  nymph,  the 
oracular  cave  of  some  prophet,  the  eternal  fire,  the  stone 
that  fell  from  heaven,  the  lair  of  the  sacred  serpent,  the 
rude  bronze  or  oaken  fetish,  and  all  the  mysteries  of  the 
Holy  of  Holies  in  the  upper  or  inner  city. 

The  citizen  was  born  to  the  privilege  of  these  gods : 
his  city  and  its  worship  and  rites  formed  an  inalienable 
religion  which  no  man  could  acquire,  no  man  could  put 
ofif.  A  man  could  not  change  his  city,  except  under 
rare  and  difficult  conditions;  if  he  left  this  city  he 
became  an  outcast  and  an  outlaw,  a  man  without  legal 
rights  or  religious  privileges,  unless  so  far  as  he  was 
protected  or  adopted  by  some  new  household  or  gild. 
To  be  banished  from  one's  city  was  a  sort  of  civil 
death  ;  moral  and  spiritual  degradation,  with  some  of 
the  effects  of  excommunication  and  outlawry  at  once. 
If  a  man  came  to  a  city  not  his  own  for  pleasure  or 
business,  he  remained  a  sojourner  and  a  foreigner,  with- 
out the  rights  of  citizenship,  in  a  state  between  a  citizen 
and  a  slave ;  and  his  condition  was  less  pleasant  and 


THE   ANCIENT   CITY  237 

secure  than  is  that  of  a  Chinese  coolie  in  California  or 
Victoria. 

To  the  free-born  citizen,  his  City  was  his  Church  and 
his  Country,  his  home  and  his  society.  The  worship  of 
the  gods  consisted  in  a  constant  succession  of  public 
ceremonies  which  combined  artistic  display  with  civic 
festival.  To  all  of  these  the  citizen  was  free,  and  no 
business  or  work  was  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  social 
and  religious  duty  of  attending  what  was  at  once  divine 
service  and  patriotic  function.  The  southern  climate 
usually  enabled  him  to  enjoy  all  these  in  the  open  air 
or  under  a  covered  portico — pictures,  statues,  proces- 
sions, lectures,  hymns,  sacrifices,  musical  celebrations, 
were  all  to  be  found  in  public  places  or  open  colonnades. 
The  piety  and  public  spirit  of  the  opulent  noble  filled 
each  market-place  or  street  corner  with  a  work  of  art, 
a  shrine,  a  statue,  a  fountain  or  a  portico.  There  were 
no  museums,  because  the  city,  its  temples,  and  forum, 
were  a  continuous  museum,  open  at  all  times  and  with- 
out fee  or  ticket.  The  theatres  were  in  buildings 
hollowed  out  of  the  rock  or  open  to  the  sky,  and  were 
practically  free  of  charge.  Exhibitions  of  skill,  dancing, 
the  singing  in  chorus  of  hymns,  processions  on  horse 
and  foot,  chariot  races  and  horse  races,  even  combats 
with  beasts  and  pantomimes  were,  in  origin  and  in 
theory,  religious  ceremonies,  and  as  such  were  open  and 
gratuitous  in  practice. 

It  was  a  civic  obligation  of  the  rich  and  well-born  to 
offer  these  artistic  displays  and  these  means  of  religious 
worship  to  their  fellow-citizens ;  and  it  was  part  of  the 
inheritance  they  derived  from  their  ancestors  and  their 
ancestral  deities.  These  leitourgies  were  the  tribute 
that  the  rich  paid  to  the  state  and  to  the  patron  gods  of 
their  family  and  the  shades  of  their  forefathers.  That 


238  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

which  began  as  a  sacred  duty  to  family  and  to  the 
Powers  above  and  below  gradually  became  a  sort  of 
public  tax  or  civic  obligation  to  their  countrymen.  They 
were  expected  to  provide  plays,  festivals,  illuminations, 
races,  concerts,  fountains,  baths,  temples,  and  works  of 
art.  At  Rome  they  pleaded  the  causes  of  their  clients 
in  the  law-courts,  protected  them  in  difficulty,  and 
ultimately  supported  them  in  need,  they  threw  open 
their  gardens,  and  often  they  bequeathed  their  mansions, 
gardens,  estates,  and  wealth  to  the  city  as  their  heirs. 
The  wealthy  and  the  ambitious  were  expected  to  take  the 
lead  in  peace  and  in  war,  in  matters  sacred  or  profane, 
in  art  and  in  law.  On  the  great  festivals  and  civic 
gatherings  they  were  called  on  to  make  what  are  called 
in  the  States  public  '  orations '  in  honour  of  the  city, 
its  sons,  and  its  deities.  Public  men  in  Europe,  like 
'  prominent  citizens '  in  America,  are  also  accustomed 
to  make  '  orations ' ;  and  Lord  Rosebery  or  Mr.  Balfour 
can  hardly  play  a  game  or  eat  a  dinner  without  being 
called  on  for  a  few  words.  But  at  Athens  or  at  Rome, 
it  was  a  more  serious  and  perhaps  a  more  artistic  per- 
formance than  our  after-dinner  witticisms.  And  those 
who  stood  in  the  forum  and  listened  to  Pericles  and  to 
Demosthenes,  to  Scipio  and  to  Cicero,  took  home  more 
material  for  thought  and  a  higher  standard  of  public 
debate  than  what  we  usually  carry  away  with  us  from  a 
crowded  town's-meeting. 

Men  did  not  make  speeches  in  public  meetings 
in  order  '  to  get  into  Parliament ' :  because  every  adult 
citizen  was  himself  a  member  of  Parliament,  or  at 
least  a  legislator.  At  set  times,  the  citizens  were 
gathered  in  the  agora  or  forum  round  the  bema  or 
rostrum,  listened  to  those  who  addressed  them,  and 
then  and  there  voted  decrees  and  made  laws.  In  many 


THE   ANCIENT   CITY  239 

Greek  cities  any  citizen  had  a  right  to  stand  up  and 
propose  a  decree  or  a  law  or  amendment ;  and  if  he 
could  persuade  his  fellow-citizens,  or  such  of  them  as 
chose  to  attend  the  meeting,  his  proposition  was  at  once 
carried  out.  A  citizen's  trade  or  profession,  if  he  had 
one,  was  practically  determined  by  custom  ;  and,  as  a 
rule,  it  could  not  be  exercised  freely  in  any  other  way 
or  in  other  place.  The  public  places,  gardens,  temples, 
colonnades,  and  monuments  were  perpetually  thronged 
with  citizens  who  knew  each  other  by  sight  and  name, 
who  spent  their  lives  in  a  sort  of  open-air  club,  talking 
politics,  art,  business,  or  scandal — criticised  Aristophanes' 
last  comic  opera  and  Cicero's  furious  attack  on  Clodius. 
And  in  the  cool  of  the  day  they  gathered  to  see  the 
young  lads  wrestle,  race,  leap,  and  box,  cast  the  javelin 
or  the  stone  ;  and  the  younger  warriors  practised  feats 
with  their  horses  or  with  the  spear  and  the  shield. 

Of  course  such  a  city  was  of  moderate  size.  No  city 
in  Greece  proper  exceeded  in  size  such  cities  as  Edin- 
burgh or  York  ;  and  most  of  them  were  of  smaller  area 
than  Lincoln  and  Oxford.  Even  Rome,  Syracuse,  and 
Alexandria,  the  largest  cities  of  the  ancient  world, 
were  not  so  vast  but  what  one  could  walk  round  their 
outer  walls  in  a  summer  afternoon.  In  Greece  and 
Italy,  every  considerable  city  was  beautiful  and  set  in 
a  beautiful  site — with  a  central  citadel  crowned  with 
porticoes,  colonnades,  and  temples  ;  and  in  some  cities, 
such  as  Athens,  Corinth,  Ephesus,  Byzantium,  Sparta, 
Corcyra,  Naples,  Ancona,  Rome,  with  a  panorama  of 
varied  splendour.  Within  the  walls  there  would  be 
ample  space  for  gardens,  groves,  parks,  and  exercise 
grounds ;  and  on  issuing  from  the  walls  without,  the 
open  country  at  once  presented  itself,  where  game  could 
be  chased  or  the  mountain-side  could  be  roamed. 


240  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

There  were  no  leagues  of  dull  and  grimy  suburbs,  no 
acres  of  factories  and  smoky  furnaces,  fetid  streams,  and 
squalid  wastes  ;  there  was  no  drunkenness  in  the  streets, 
and  practically  no  rates  and  taxes  and  no  poor-houses. 

Health  was  a  matter  of  religion,  and  it  was  vastly 
promoted  by  this,  that  cleanliness  and  sanitary  discipline 
was  a  religious  duty  as  well  as  an  affair  of  personal 
pride.  It  remained  a  religious  duty  and  a  poetic  senti- 
ment after  definite  belief  in  local  gods  had  become  a 
mere  convention  or  a  phrase.  To  defile  the  precincts 
of  the  city,  and  almost  every  open  corner  of  it  was 
consecrated  to  some  deity  or  hero,  was  to  outrage 
the  powers  of  heaven  or  of  earth  ;  to  cast  refuse  or 
sewage  into  a  stream  was  to  incur  the  wrath  of  some 
river-god  ;  to  pollute  one  of  the  city  fountains  was  to 
offer  sacrilege  to  some  water-nymph.  To  bring  disease 
into  some  public  gathering  was  to  insult  the  gods 
and  demi-gods  ;  to  place  the  dead  within  the  precincts 
of  a  temple,  or  to  bury  the  dead  within  the  city,  or  in 
contact  with  human  habitations,  to  leave  the  dead  or 
any  human  remains  unburied  or  scattered  about  in 
public  places  and  abandoned  as  carrion,  would  have 
seemed  to  a  Greek  or  a  Roman  the  last  enormity  of 
blasphemous  horror. 

To  wash,  to  shampoo  the  skin  daily,  to  trim  and 
anoint  the  hair,  to  scour  the  clothes  (and  the  Roman 
toga  was  made  of  white  wool  which  needed  endless 
scouring),  to  brush,  paint,  and  limewash  the  walls  and 
floors,  to  cleanse  the  public  thoroughfares,  to  get  rid  of 
every  form  of  uncleanness  and  refuse — this  was  a 
religious,  social,  domestic,  and  personal  duty :  to  effect 
which  were  concentrated  almost  all  the  impulses  that 
we  know  as  obedience  to  the  Deity,  social  decency, 
family  pride,  and  the  being  a  gentleman  and  a  lady. 


THE   ANCIENT   CITY  241 

A  Greek  who  should  have  submitted  to  live  in  the 
bestial  uncleanness,  the  fetid  atmosphere,  and  the  pol- 
luted water  supply  to  which  we  condemn  such  masses 
of  the  labouring  people  of  our  vast  cities,  would  have 
felt  himself  a  rebel  against  the  gods  above,  and  an  out- 
cast from  the  fellowship  of  decent  citizens.  The  Greek 
word  for  '  gentleman '  is  Ka\oKaja06<j,  which  literally 
means  the  '  beautiful  and  the  good,'  and  which,  perhaps, 
came  to  mean  in  practice  the  clean  and  '  the  nice,'  as 
we  say,  gens  comme  il  faut,  as  the  French  say,  '  the 
well-washed '  and  '  the  respectable.'  No  Greek  could 
think  himself  '  respectable '  or  '  nice,'  unless  he  were 
constantly  scouring,  scraping,  washing,  polishing,  and 
anointing  his  person,  his  clothes,  his  house,  and  his 
utensils.  And  the  women  were  almost  as  active  as  the 
men  in  the  daily  use  of  the  bath. 

The  habit  of  constant  discussion  and  witnessing 
shows  grew  on  the  Greeks,  as  the  habit  of  bathing  grew 
on  the  Romans,  until  these  things  became  a  mania  to 
which  their  lives  were  given  up.  Whole  rivers  were 
brought  down  from  the  mountains  in  aqueducts,  and 
ultimately  in  the  Roman  Empire  the  city  population 
spent  a  large  part  of  their  day  in  the  public  baths — 
buildings  as  big  as  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  and  of  magni- 
ficent materials  and  adornment — where  5000  persons 
could  meet  and  take  their  air-bath  in  what  was  club, 
play-ground,  theatre,  lecture-hall,  and  promenade  at 
once.  Such  was  the  classical  religion  of  cleanliness, 
of  which  the  Musulman  has  inherited  some  traditions, 
and  of  which  Europe  in  our  own  generation  is  beginning 
to  revive  the  practice.  The  excess  of  this  skin  deep 
purification  of  the  body  led  to  a  melancholy  reaction, 
when  Christianity  denounced  it  as  sinful,  and  recon- 
secrated Dirt,  the  natural  state  of  primitive  man  ;  until 

Q 


242  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

at  last  in  the  ages  of  faith  we  had  uncleanness  of  the 
body  regarded  as  the  purity  of  the  soul,  and  a  man 
was  exalted  to  be  saint  when  he  was  found  to  have 
made  himself  a  mass  of  vermin. 

The  obverse  to  the  bright  picture  of  the  Ancient 
City  was  dark  enough.  If  the  citizens  engaged  in  war, 
and  war  was  always,  until  the  consolidation  of  empire 
by  Rome,  a  possible  event,  defeat  meant  the  risk  of 
having  the  city  razed  to  the  ground,  or  turned  into  an 
open  village ;  sometimes  a  general  massacre,  or  slavery 
for  man  and  woman.  Or,  if  in  domestic  politics,  a 
crisis  occurred,  which  with  us  means  a  change  of  govern- 
ment, in  Greece  or  Italy  it  might  imply  to  the  losers 
at  the  ballot  confiscation  and  exile ;  and  the  defeated 
party,  be  they  democrat  or  aristocrat,  lost  home  and 
country,  and  became  outcasts  and  outlaws  until  they 
could  get  a  reversal  of  the  sentence.  Furthermore,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  full  privileges  of  citizen 
belonged  only  to  a  portion  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
city — a  portion  which  might  not  exceed  one-tenth, 
whilst  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  actual  dwellers  within 
the  walls  might  be  slaves,  freedmen,  aliens,  strangers, 
clients,  and  camp-followers.  And  the  slaves  in  the 
public  service,  in  the  mines  and  factories,  or  in  the 
farms,  docks,  ships,  or  warehouses,  led  a  life  too 
often  of  appalling  misery  and  toil.  Even  the  house- 
hold slaves  who  shared  the  intimacy  of  their  master 
or  mistress,  who  were  often  their  superiors  in  culture 
and  refinement,  were  liable  to  horrible  punishments, 
to  bodily  and  moral  degradation,  and  to  any  cruelty 
or  insult  which  brutality  and  caprice  might  inflict. 
During  the  brilliant  age  at  Greece,  and  at  last  under 
the  empire  at  Rome,  domestic  life  in  our  modern  sense 
was  stunted  or  corrupt.  At  Greece,  the  wife  was  too 


THE  ANCIENT   CITY  243 

often  the  drudge  or  the  appendage  of  the  household  ; 
at  Rome,  she  too  often  became  the  tyrant.  Female 
society  in  its  higher  meaning  was  unknown,  unless  in 
a  depraved  sense.  Vice,  indolence,  indecency,  were  not 
only  things  not  involving  shame,  but  things  which  in 
an  elegant  form  were  a  matter  of  public  pride. 

Thus  this  apotheosis  of  the  City  had  both  black  and 
brilliant  sides.  But  there  is  no  essential  connexion 
between  its  bright  and  its  dark  aspect.  This  religious 
veneration  of  the  City,  this  worship  of  the  City  as  the 
practical  type  of  religion,  was  extravagant,  anti-social, 
and  inhuman  in  the  wider  sense  of  patriotism  and 
human  duty.  But  it  had  elements  of  fixity,  of  dignity, 
of  reality,  and  of  moral  and  religious  fervour,  that  are 
wholly  unknown  to  our  city  life,  inconceivable  even  by 
us,  elements  to  which  our  tepid  Patriotism  makes  but 
a  feeble  approach.  The  citizens  were  not  indeed  the 
members  of  a  great  nation,  but  a  very  close,  jealous, 
and  selfish  civic  aristocracy.  Within  their  own  order 
they  gave  the  world  fine  examples  of  equality,  sim- 
plicity, sociability,  and  public  devotion,  such  as  are 
hardly  intelligible  to  modern  men,  such  as  no  re- 
publican enthusiasm  has  ever  in  modern  days  attempted 
to  revive.  In  the  horror  of  dirt  and  the  religion  of 
personal  health  and  perfection,  they  gave  the  world 
inimitable  examples  at  which  we  look  back  in  wonder 
and  awe.  For  the  love  of  beauty  we  have  taken  to 
us  the  love  of  comfort ;  for  the  profusion  of  art.  we 
have  substituted  material  production  ;  for  the  religio 
loci  we  prefer  the  vague  immensities  of  the  Universe  ; 
in  place  of  public  magnificence  and  social  communion, 
we  make  idols  of  our  domestic  privacy  and  private 
luxuriousness. 


244  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

II.   The  Mediceval  City 

We  turn  to  imagine  some  city  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Here  also  would  be,  as  in  an  ancient  city,  a  long  circuit 
of  walls,  with  gates  and  towers,  a  military  and  highly 
organised  society,  a  complex  religious  system,  intense 
civic  pride  and  patriotism.  And  yet  the  differences  are 
vast.  The  grand  difference  of  all  is  that  the  city  is 
no  longer  the  State,  except  in  some  parts  of  Italy, 
and  even  there  not  in  the  early  Middle  Ages.  In  the 
early  Middle  Ages,  the  city  is  not  the  State  or  the 
nation  :  it  is  only  a  stronghold,  or  fortified  magazine  in 
the  barony,  duchy,  kingdom,  or  empire.  It  is  only  a 
big  and  very  complicated  castle,  with  its  defensive 
system  exactly  like  any  other  castle,  governed  by  a 
mayor,  bailiff,  or  prior,  and  the  burgher  council,  and  not 
necessarily  by  a  feudal  lord.  Except  in  Italy  and  a 
few  free  towns  along  the  Mediterranean  at  particular 
periods,  no  city  counted  itself  as  wholly  outside  the 
jurisdiction  of  some  overlord,  king,  or  emperor. 

Apart  from  its  political  and  legal  privileges,  a 
mediaeval  city  was  something  like  Windsor  Castle  or 
the  Tower  of  London,  on  a  large  scale  and  with  many 
subdivisions,  governed  by  an  elected  corporation  and 
not  by  a  baron  or  viceroy.  The  ancient  city,  however 
much  it  had  to  fear  war  and  opposition  from  its  rival 
cities  or  states,  could  feel  safe  within  its  own  territories 
from  any  attack  on  the  part  of  its  rural  neighbours, 
subjects,  or  fellow-citizens.  There  it  was  mistress,  or 
rather  the  city  included  the  territory  around  it.  No 
Athenian  ever  dreamed  of  being  invaded  by  the  in- 
habitants of  Attica,  or  even  of  Boeotia.  No  Roman 
troubled  himself  about  Latians  or  Etruscans  other  than 
the  citizens  of  Latian  or  Tuscan  cities.  City  life  in  the 


THE   MEDI/EVAL   CITY  245 

Middle  Ages  was  a  very  different  thing.  Until  a 
mediaeval  city  became  very  strong  and  had  secured  round 
itself  an  ample  territory,  it  was  always  in  difficulties 
with  the  lords  of  neighbouring  fiefs  and  castles.  Even 
in  Italy,  before  the  great  cities  had  crushed  the  feudal- 
lords  and  had  forced  them  to  become  citizens,  the 
mediaeval  cities  had  constantly  to  fight  for  their  exist- 
ence against  chiefs  whose  castles  lay  within  sight.  The 
ancient  city  was  a  State — the  collective  centre  of  an 
organised  territory,  supreme  within  it,  and  owing  no 
fealty  to  any  other  sovereign,  temporal  or  spiritual, 
outside  its  own  territory.  The  mediaeval  city  was  only 
a  privileged  town  within  a  fief  or  kingdom,  having 
charters,  rights,  and  fortifications  of  its  own  ;  but,  both 
in  religious  and  in  political  rank,  bound  in  absolute  duty 
to  far  distant  and  much  more  exalted  superiors. 

Partly  as  a  consequence  of  its  being  in  constant 
danger  from  its  neighbours,  it  had  a  defensive  system 
vastly  more  elaborate  than  that  of  ancient  cities.  Its 
outer  walls  were  of  enormous  height,  thickness,  and 
complexity.  They  were  flanked  with  gigantic  towers, 
gates,  posterns,  and  watch-towers  ;  it  had  a  broad  moat 
round  it  and  a  complicated  series  of  drawbridges, 
stockades,  barbicans,  and  outworks.  We  may  see 
something  of  it  in  the  old  city  of  Carcassonne  in  the 
south  of  France,  destroyed  by  St.  Louis  in  1262,  in  the 
walls  of  Rome  round  the  Vatican,  and  in  the  old  walls 
of  Constantinople  on  the  western  side  near  the  Gate  of 
St.  Romanus.  From  without  the  Mediaeval  City  looked 
like  a  vast  castle.  And  the  military  discipline  and 
precautions  were  entirely  those  of  a  castle.  In  peace 
or  war,  it  was  a  fortress  first,  and  a  dwelling-place 
afterwards.  This  vast  apparatus  of  defence  cramped 
the  space  and  shut  out  light,  air,  and  prospect.  Few 


246  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

ancient  cities  would  have  looked  from  without  like  a 
fortress  ;  for  the  walls  were  much  lower  and  simpler, 
in  the  absence  of  any  elaborate  system  of  artillery.  But 
the  Mediaeval  City  with  its  far  loftier  walls,  towers,  gates, 
and  successive  defences,  looked  more  like  a  prison  than 
a  town,  and  indeed  to  a  great  extent  it  was  a  prison. 
There  could  seldom  have  been  much  prospect  from 
within  it,  except  of  its  own  walls  and  towers ;  there 
were  few  open  spaces,  usually  there  was  one  small 
market-place,  no  public  gardens  or  walks  ;  the  city  was 
encumbered  with  castles,  monasteries,  and  castellated 
enclosures  ;  and  the  bridges  and  quays  were  crowded 
with  a  confused  pile  of  lofty  wooden  houses  ;  and,  as 
the  walls  necessarily  ran  along  any  sea  or  river  frontage 
that  the  city  had,  it  was  impossible  to  get  any  general 
view  of  the  town,  or  to  look  up  or  down  the  river  for 
the  closely-packed  buildings  on  the  bridges. 

As  a  rule  there  was  no  citadel  as  in  the  ancient  cities, 
though  there  was  sometimes  an  upper  and  a  lower 
town,  and  often  a  castle  in  one  corner  or  side  of  the  city, 
as  the  Tower  is  at  London  and  the  Bastille  was  at  Paris, 
St.  Angelo  at  Rome,  or  Blachernae  and  the  Seven 
Towers  at  Constantinople.  The  place  of  citadel  was 
usually  occupied  by  some  vast  central  cathedral  or  abbey; 
which,  with  its  adjuncts,  occupied  nearly  one-tenth  of 
the  whole  area  in  such  cities  as  Lincoln,  York,  Amiens, 
Reims,  Orvieto ;  and  even  in  cities  like  Florence,  Paris, 
Rouen,  London,  Antwerp,  and  Cologne,  stood  out  in 
the  far  distance  towering  over  the  city  as  did  the 
Acropolis  at  Athens  or  the  Capitol  at  Rome.  Within 
the  walls,  and  around  the  walls  for  a  distance  of  many 
miles,  was  a  profusion  of  churches,  abbeys,  nunneries, 
chapels,  oratories,  varying  from  such  enormous  piles 
as  those  of  Westminster,  of  St.  Germain  des  Pres,  St. 


THE   MEDIEVAL  CITY  247 

Peter's  and  the  Vatican  at  Rome,  to  the  smallest 
chantry  on  the  pier  of  a  bridge  where  a  benison  could 
be  said. 

Many  of  these  churches  were  far  larger  than  the 
ancient  temples  ;  and  if  their  architecture  had  not  the 
stately  and  simple  dignity  of  the  Doric  fane,  they  were 
far  richer  in  varied  works  of  art,  more  gorgeous  in 
colour,  and  infinitely  more  charged  with  religious  and 
aesthetic  impression.  Painting,  fresco,  mosaic,  stained 
glass,  gilding,  carved  statues,  coloured  marbles,  images 
and  reliefs  in  thousands,  chased  gold  and  silver  utensils, 
bronzes,  ivories,  silks,  velvets,  tapestries,  embroideries, 
illuminated  books,  carved  wood,  bells,  clocks,  perfumes, 
organs,  instruments,  choirs  of  singers — every  beautiful 
and  delightful  thing  was  crowded  together,  with  the 
relics  of  saints,  the  tombs  of  great  men,  the  graves 
of  citizens  for  centuries,  wonder-working  pictures, 
miraculous  images,  lamps  and  candles  on  a  thousand 
altars,  chapels,  offerings  and  images  dedicated  to 
countless  saints,  martyrs,  and  holy  men.  A  mediaeval 
Church,  however  much  it  lacked  the  austere  simplicity 
and  faultless  symmetry  of  a  Greek  temple,  was  as  much 
deeper  and  more  full  in  its  solemnity  and  power,  as 
the  Catholic  mythology  was  deeper  and  nobler  than  the 
classical  mythology. 

So  too  the  Church  was  morally  a  far  nobler  thing 
than  the  Temple.  It  was  no  mere  colonnade  for  pro- 
cessions, lounging,  and  society.  It  was  this,  but  much 
more  also.  It  was  school,  art-museum,  music-hall,  place 
of  personal  prayer,  of  confession  of  sin,  preaching,  teach- 
ing, and  civilising.  It  combined  what  at  Athens  was  to 
be  sought  in  Parthenon,  Theseum,  Theatre,  Academus, 
Stoa,  and  Agora — and  very  much  beside  which  was 
never  known  at  Athens  at  all — sacrament,  confession, 


248  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

penance,  sermon.  A  Mediaeval  city  was  full  of  such 
centres  of  moral  and  spiritual  education  ;  and  in  and 
around  such  cities  as  Rome,  Paris,  and  London,  the 
religious  edifices  of  all  kinds  were  counted  not  by 
hundreds,  but  by  thousands.  Every  great  mediaeval 
city  contained  its  monasteries,  nunneries,  hospices,  and 
colleges,  vast  ranges  of  foundations  that  were  at  once 
schools,  training  colleges,  hospitals,  refuges,  and  poor- 
houses.  Here  was  the  grand  difference  between  the 
ancient  and  the  mediaeval  city.  Within  the  city,  there 
were  now  no  slaves,  no  serfs,  no  abject  and  outlaw  caste 
of  any  kind,  except  the  Jews  who  formed  a  separate  city 
of  their  own.  All  citizens  were  free  :  all  without  excep- 
tion had  rights  of  some  kind.  The  churches,  monas- 
teries, hospitals,  and  schools  existed,  in  original  design, 
mainly  for  the  poor,  the  wretched,  and  the  diseased. 
Christ  loved  the  weak  and  the  suffering.  And  the  doors 
of  His  house  stood  ever  open  to  the  weak,  the  suffering, 
the  halt,  the  blind,  and  the  lame.  The  church  of  the 
Middle  Ages  suffered  little  children  to  come  unto  Him. 
The  poorest,  the  weakest,  the  most  abject,  were  welcome 
there.  The  Priest,  the  Monk,  the  Nun  taught,  clothed, 
and  nursed  the  children  of  the  poor,  and  the  suffering 
poor.  The  leper  was  tended  in  lazar-houses,  even  it 
might  be  by  kings  and  princesses,  with  the  devotion  of 
Christian  self-sacrifice.  For  the  first  time  in  history 
there  were  schools,  hospitals,  poor-houses,  for  the  most 
lowly,  compassion  for  the  most  miserable,  and  consola- 
tion in  Heaven  for  those  who  had  found  earth  a  Hell. 

The  old  Greek  and  Roman  religion  of  external  clean- 
ness was  turned  into  a  sin.  The  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  sanctity  now  was  to  be  unclean.  No  one  was 
clean  :  but  the  devout  Christian  was  unutterably  foul. 
The  tone  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  matter  of  dirt  was  a 


THE   MEDLEVAL  CITY  249 

form  of  mental  disease.  Cooped  up  in  castles  and 
walled  cities,  with  narrow  courts  and  sunless  alleys,  they 
would  pass  day  and  night  in  the  same  clothes,  within 
the  same  airless,  gloomy,  windowless,  and  pestiferous 
chambers,  they  would  go  to  bed  without  night  clothes, 
and  sleep  under  uncleansed  sheepskins  and  frieze  rugs  ; 
they  would  wear  the  same  leather,  fur,  and  woollen  gar- 
ments for  a  lifetime,  and  even  for  successive  generations  ; 
they  ate  their  meals  without  forks,  and  covered  up  the 
orts  with  rushes  ;  they  flung  their  refuse  out  of  the 
window  into  the  street  or  piled  it  up  in  the  back-yard  ; 
the  streets  were  narrow,  unpaved,  crooked  lanes  through 
which,  under  the  very  palace  turrets,  men  and  beasts 
tramped  knee-deep  in  noisome  mire.  This  was  at  inter- 
vals varied  with  fetid  rivulets  and  open  cesspools  ;  every 
church  was  crammed  with  rotting  corpses  and  sur- 
rounded with  graveyards,  sodden  with  cadaveric  liquids, 
and  strewn  with  disinterred  bones.  Round  these  char- 
nel  houses  and  pestiferous  churches  were  piled  old 
decaying  wooden  houses,  their  sole  air  being  these 
deadly  exhalations,  and  their  sole  water  supply  being 
these  polluted  streams  or  wells  dug  in  this  reeking  soil. 
Even  in  the  palaces  and  castles  of  the  rich  the  same 
bestial  habits  prevailed.  Prisoners  rotted  in  noisome 
dungeons  under  the  banqueting  hall ;  corpses  were 
buried  under  the  floor  of  the  private  chapel ;  scores  of 
soldiers  and  attendants  slept  in  gangs  for  months  to- 
gether in  the  same  hall  or  guard-room  where  they  ate  and 
drank,  played  and  fought.  It  is  one  of  those  problems 
which  still  remain  for  historians  to  solve — how  the  race 
ever  survived  the  insanitary  conditions  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  still  more  how  it  was  ever  continued — what  was 
the  normal  death-rate  and  the  normal  birth-rate  of  cities  ? 
The  towns  were  no  doubt  maintained  by  immigration, 


250  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

and  the  rural  labourer  had  the  best  chance  of  life,  if  he 
could  manage  to  escape  death  by  violence  or  famine. 

With  all  this,  there  was  about  the  great  cities  of  the 
Middle  Ages  a  noble  spirit  of  civic  life  and  energy,  an 
ever-present  love  of  Art,  a  zeal  for  good  work  as  good 
work,  and  a  deep  under-lying  sense  of  social  duty  and 
personal  faithfulness.  A  real  and  sacred  bond  held  the 
master  and  his  apprentices  together,  the  master  work- 
man to  his  men,  the  craftsman  to  his  gild-brethren,  the 
gildmen  in  the  mass  as  a  great  aggregate  corporation. 
Each  burgher's  house  was  his  factory  and  workshop, 
each  house,  each  parish,  each  gild,  each  town  had  its 
own  patron  saint,  its  own  special  church,  its  own  feudal 
patron,  its  corporate  life,  its  own  privileges,  traditions,  and 
emblems.  Thus  grew  up  for  the  whole  range  of  the 
artificer's  life,  for  the  civic  life,  for  the  commercial  life,  a 
profound  sense  of  consecrated  rule  which  amounted  to  a 
kind  of  religion  of  Industry,  a  sort  of  patriotism  of 
Industry,  an  Art  of  Industry,  the  like  of  which  has  never 
existed  before  or  since.  It  was  in  ideal  and  in  aim 
(though  alas !  not  often  in  fact)  the  highest  form  of 
secular  life  that  human  society  has  yet  reached.  It  rested 
ultimately,  though  somewhat  vaguely,  on  religious  Duty. 
And  it  produced  a  sense  of  mutual  obligation  between 
master  and  man,  employer  and  employed,  old  and 
young,  rich  and  poor,  wise  and  ignorant.  To  restore  the 
place  of  this  sense  of  social  obligation  in  Industry,  the 
world  has  been  seeking  and  experimenting  now  for  these 
four  centuries  past. 

III.   The  Modern  City 

It  is  needless  to  describe  the  modern  city :  we  all 
know  what  it  is,  some  of  us  too  well.  The  first  great  fact 
about  the  Modern  City  is  that  it  is  in  a  far  lower  stage 


THE   MODERN   CITY  251 

of  organic  life.  It  is  almost  entirely  bereft  of  any 
religious,  patriotic,  or  artistic  character  as  a  whole. 
There  is  in  modern  cities  a  great  deal  of  active  religious 
life,  much  public  spirit,  in  certain  parts  a  love  of  beauty, 
taste,  and  cultivation  of  a  special  kind.  But  it  is  not 
embodied  in  the  city  ;  it  is  not  associated  with  the  city  ; 
it  does  not  radiate  from  the  city.  The  Modern  City  is 
ever  changing,  loose  in  its  organisation,  casual  in  its  form. 
It  grows  up,  or  extends  suddenly,  no  man  knows  how,  in 
a  single  generation — in  America  in  a  single  decade.  Its 
denizens  come  and  go,  pass  on,  changing  every  few  years 
and  even  months.  Few  families  have  lived  in  the  same 
city  for  three  successive  generations.  An  Athenian, 
Syracusan,  Roman  family  had  dwelt  in  their  city  for 
twenty  generations. 

A  typical  industrial  city  of  modern  times  has  no 
founder,  no  traditional  heroes,  no  patrons  or  saints,  no 
emblem,  no  history,  no  definite  circuit.  In  a  century,  it 
changes  its  population  over  and  over  again,  and  takes 
on  two  or  three  different  forms.  In  ten  or  twenty  years 
it  evolves  a  vast  new  suburb,  a  mere  wen  of  bricks  or 
stone,  with  no  god  or  demigod  for  its  founder,  but  a 
speculative  builder,  a  syndicate  or  a  railway.  The 
speculative  builder  or  the  company  want  a  quick  return 
for  their  money.  The  new  suburb  is  occupied  by  people 
who  are  so  busy,  and  in  such  a  hurry  to  get  to  work, 
that  in  taking  a  house,  their  sole  inquiry  is — how  near  is 
it  to  the  station,  or  where  the  tram-car  puts  you  down. 

The  result  is,  that  a  Modern  City  is  an  amorphous 
amoeba -like  aggregate  of  buildings,  wholly  without 
defined  limits,  form,  permanence,  organisation,  or  beauty 
— often  infinitely  dreary,  monstrous,  grimy,  noisy,  and 
bewildering.  In  America  and  in  parts  of  England,  a 
big  town  springs  up  in  twenty  or  thirty  years  out  of  a 


252  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

moor,  or  out  of  a  village  on  a  mill-stream.  If  you  leave 
your  native  town — say  to  go  to  India,  and  return  after 
five-and-twenty  years,  you  will  not  find  your  way  about 
it ;  and  a  gasometer  or  a  railway-siding  will  have  occu- 
pied the  site  of  the  family  mansion.  A  modern  city 
is  the  embodiment  of  indefinite  change,  the  unlimited 
pursuit  of  new  investments  and  quick  returns,  and  of 
everybody  doing  what  he  finds  to  pay  best.  The  idea  of 
Patriotism,  Art,  Culture,  Social  Organisation,  Religion 
— as  identified  with  the  city,  springing  out  of  it, 
stimulated  by  it — is  an  idea  beyond  the  conception  of 
modern  men. 

There  are  certainly  cities  in  Europe  where  some 
remnant  of  the  old  civic  patriotism  and  municipal  life 
survives,  as  it  does  in  Paris,  Rome,  Venice,  Genoa, 
Florence,  Hamburg,  and  Bern.  In  the  British  islands, 
perhaps  Edinburgh  may  be  said  to  have  retained  a 
sense  of  civic  life,  art,  and  history ;  it  is  an  organic  and 
historic  city — not  too  large,  and  of  singular  and  striking 
natural  features.  York,  Lincoln,  Nottingham,  Leicester, 
Oxford  are  historic  cities  with  the  sacred  fire  still 
burning  feebly  in  their  ancient  sanctuary.  London,  if 
we  limit  London  to  one-fortieth  of  its  area  and  one- 
tenth  of  its  inhabitants,  has  still  the  consciousness  of  the 
culture,  glory,  and  life  of  a  great  city.  But  for  the  rest 
of  its  area  and  population,  it  is  lost  and  buried  under 
the  monotonous  pile  of  streets,  over  an  area  as  large  as 
a  county — without  history,  culture,  or  consciousness  of 
any  organic  life  as  an  effective  city. 

The  monstrous,  oppressive,  paralysing  bulk  of  modern 
London  is  becoming  one  of  the  great  diseases  of  English 
civilisation.  It  is  a  national  calamity  that  one-sixth  of 
the  entire  population  of  England  are,  as  Londoners, 
cut  off  at  once  both  from  country  life  and  from  city 


THE   MODERN   CITY  253 

life  ;  for  those  who  dwell  in  the  vast  suburbs  of  London 
are  cut  off  from  city  life  in  any  true  sense.  A  country 
covered  with  houses  is  not  a  City.  Four  or  five  millions 
of  people  herded  together  do  not  make  a  body  of 
fellow-citizens.  A  mass  of  streets  so  endless  that  it 
is  hardly  possible  on  foot  to  get  out  of  them  into  the 
open  in  a  long  day's  tramp — streets  so  monotonous 
that,  but  for  the  names  on  the  street  corner,  they  can 
hardly  be  distinguished  one  from  the  other — with 
suburbs  so  unorganised  and  mechanical  that  there  is 
nothing  to  recall  the  dignity  and  power  of  a  great 
city — with  a  population  so  movable  and  so  unsociable 
that  they  are  unknown  to  each  other  by  sight  or  name, 
have  no  interest  in  each  other's  lives,  cannot  be  induced 
to  act  in  common,  have  no  common  sympathies,  enjoy- 
ments, or  pride,  who  are  perpetually  hurrying  each  his 
own  way  to  catch  his  own  train,  omnibus,  or  tram-car, 
eager  to  do  a  good  day's  business  on  the  cheapest 
terms,  and  then  get  to  some  distant  home  to  a  meal  or 
to  rest.  That  is  not  life,  nor  is  it  society.  These  huge 
barracks  are  not  cities.  Nor  can  an  organic  body  of 
citizens  be  made  out  of  four  millions  of  human  crea- 
tures individually  grinding  out  a  monotonous  existence. 
The  bulk,  ugliness,  flabbiness  of  modern  London 
render  city  life,  in  the  true  and  noble  sense,  impossible 
or  very  rudimentary.  It  would  be  unjust  to  pronounce 
Liverpool,  Manchester,  and  Glasgow  too  big  to  make 
true  cities — though  they  have  hardly  yet  found  how  to 
deal  with  their  huge  extent.  But  Paris,  with  four  times 
the  area  and  the  population  of  these,  still  has  contrived 
to  remain  an  organic  and  mighty  city.  But  Liverpool, 
Manchester,  Glasgow  (and  the  same  is  more  or  less 
true  of  Birmingham,  Newcastle,  Leeds,  and  Bristol), 
have  enlarged  their  boundaries  so  rapidly  and  so 


254  THE  CITY   IN   HISTORY 

entirely  under  the  dominant  passion  of  turning  over 
capital  and  increasing  the  output — that  beauty,  dignity, 
culture,  and  social  life  have  been  left  to  take  care  of 
themselves,  and  the  life  of  the  labouring  masses  (for  the 
well-to-do  protect  themselves  by  living  outside  and 
reducing  their  city  life  to  '  works '  and  an  office)  is 
monotonous  to  all  and  to  many  almost  bereft  of 
physical  comfort  and  moral  elevation.  An  Athenian 
or  a  Roman  who  might  have  risen  from  his  long  sleep  in 
the  Cerameicus  or  from  beside  the  Appian  Way  to  find 
himself  a  denizen  of  one  of  our  cotton  or  metal  cities, 
with  its  sooty  air  and  its  polluted  streams,  its  mesquin 
market-place,  its  dingy  lanes,  and  monotonous  factories, 
with  belching  chimneys  and  steam  'hooters,'  and  the 
endless  hurrying  to  and  fro  of  its  melancholy  '  hands,' 
would  have  fancied  himself  in  one  of  the  regions  of 
Hades.  The  unregulated  extension  of  the  factory 
system,  of  the  steam  and  coal  industry  to  modern  cities, 
has  proved  as  destructive  of  comfort  and  in  some  places 
and  in  some  periods  as  dangerous-  to  health  as  anything 
due  to  the  defensive  necessities  and  the  unclean  ignor- 
ance of  the  Middle  Ages.  There  have  been  cases  where 
it  caused  a  worse  pollution  of  water  and  of  air.  And  it 
certainly  made  life  more  dismal  and  far  less  available 
for  art  and  nobility  of  soul. 

There  is  no  occasion  for  pessimism  :  and  none  but  a 
reactionist  or  a  madman  could  think  of  going  back  to 
ancient  times  whether  of  Polytheism  or  Feudalism. 
There  are  sides  of  modern  city  life,  after  all,  far  grander 
than  anything  in  the  ancient  or  the  mediaeval  world, 
though  they  are  not  so  directly  the  outcome  of  the 
organic  city.  Our  civilisation  has  long  been  a  national 
rather  than  a  civic  growth  ;  and  we  look  more  to  the 
nation  than  we  look  to  the  city.  In  spite  of  steam,  smoke, 


THE   MODERN   CITY  255 

factories,  and  all  the  selfish  recklessness  that  distorts 
our  industrial  existence,  many  of  our  modern  cities,  by 
zealous  sanitary  science,  and  by  the  passion  for  warring 
on  disease  that  so  nobly  marks  our  age,  have  attained  a 
death-rate  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  cities,  often 
reaching  to  half  the  death-rate  common  in  mediaeval 
and  Oriental  cities.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
London,  considering  its  vast  .size  and  its  special  condi- 
tions, must  be  counted  as  standing  at  the  head  of  the 
civilised  and  uncivilised  world,  for  its  systematic  efforts 
and  final  success  in  reducing  the  death-rate.  It  is  now 
the  least  noxious  to  life  of  all  great  cities  of  the  world, 
with  a  mortality  far  below  that  of  the  other  capitals  of 
Europe,  and  vastly  below  that  of  St.  Petersburg  or 
Calcutta.  That  means  that  we  save  year  by  year  some 
hundred  thousand  souls  in  London  alone. 

Nor  is  this  all.  Our  city  schools,  museums,  libraries, 
parks,  hospitals,  clubs,  our  charitable,  social,  and  educa- 
tional associations  (though  it  must  be  said  they  are  only 
in  part  the  outcome  of  any  city  life  or  city  organisation) 
surpass  anything  which  the  ancient  or  the  mediaeval 
world  could  show.  Such  cities  as  Glasgow  and  Man- 
chester have  at  last  a  water  supply  that  may  fairly 
compare  with  the  Roman,  and  in  many  of  our  Midland 
towns  the  water  supply  is  pure,  if  not  abundant.  It  is 
obvious  that  the  police,  the  paving,  the  lighting,  and  in 
a  few  cities  the  sewage  system  far  surpasses  anything 
ever  known  in  history.  Birmingham  has  done  wonders 
with  great  difficulties  and  unpromising  materials.  And 
the  gigantic  and  scientific  organisation  of  municipal  life 
in  such  capitals  as  Berlin  and  Paris  has  begun  to 
impress  even  the  conservative  mind  of  the  Londoner, 
and  may  yet  find  rivals  in  our  own  mighty  metropolis. 
In  towns  like  Birmingham,  Nottingham,  Leeds,  Oxford, 


256  THE   CITY   IN   HISTORY 

Bradford,  and  Huddersfield,  the  means  of  education  and 
culture  are  high  above  the  level  of  average  English 
civilisation.  Some  of  our  more  moderate  historic  towns 
retain  or  have  regained  the  old  spirit  of  civic  life  that 
did  so  much  in  the  Middle  Ages.  We  will  not  despair. 
Tremendous  has  been  the  revolution  caused  by  modern 
industry.  We  have  lived  through  a  moral  earthquake. 
But  the  energy  and  social  sympathy  which  still  beat  in 
the  heart  of  the  English  people  will  at  last  bring  us  to  a 
nobler  type. 

IV.   The  Ideal  City 

Turn  to  the  city  as  it  might  be.  To  deal  first  with 
the  primary  physical  condition  of  size.  A  city  of  four 
millions  of  inhabitants  covering  an  area  of  more  than 
one  hundred  square  miles,  is  an  impossible  city.  It  is  a 
Wen,  as  Cobbett  called  it,  which  prevents  all  the  real 
uses  of  a  city  life.  The  concentrated  smoke  of  a  million 
chimneys,  the  collective  sewage  of  four  millions  of 
souls,  the  interminable  area  they  cover,  the  unmanage- 
ableness  of  such  a  mass  for  all  true  social  purposes  is  an 
insuperable  difficulty  to  a  people  who  have  not  the 
genius  for  city  life  that  marks  Parisians.  A  city  where 
one  cannot  walk  of  an  evening  into  the  open,  wherein 
millions  live  and  die  without  seeing  the  spring  flowers 
and  the  June  foliage  and  the  autumn  harvest,  from 
year's  end  to  year's  end,  is  an  incubus  on  civilisation. 
Paris,  with  its  wonderful  organisation  and  system  of 
lodging  in  vast  and  lofty  blocks,  is  still,  it  is  true,  a  city, 
though  one  far  too  big  and  already  becoming  unmanage- 
able. A  population  of  a  million  would  be  extreme, 
even  for  a  capital.  The  best  type  of  city  would  not 
exceed  a  quarter  or  a  fifth  of  that  number.  The 


THE   IDEAL  CITY  257 

essential  thing  in  a  great  city  is  the  power  and  variety 
that  arises  from  the  association  of  a  very  large  body  of 
organised  families  living  a  common  life  and  combining 
for  great  social  ends.  A  quarter  of  a  million  or  less 
gives  that  variety  and  that  power.  When  the  number 
is  extended  to  a  million  or  to  two  or  four  millions  the 
result  is  monotony  rather  than  variety  and  disorganisa- 
tion rather  than  association.  The  root  element  of  city 
life  is  daily  contact  and  common  society,  and  the 
numbers  to  whom  daily  contact  is  possible  are  deter- 
mined by  the  physical  conditions  of  the  living  man. 
No  machinery  or  inventions  can  do  more  than  facilitate 
physical  contact  in  a  moderate  degree.  But  five  mil- 
lions can  no  more  form  a  real  city  organism  than  they 
could  win  the  battle  of  Salamis. 

It  would  be  childish  to  expect  that  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment can  limit  the  growth  of  cities.  But  the  increasing 
enormity  of  London,  and  indeed  of  Paris,  is  becoming 
a  national  danger  of  the  first  rank  to  which  legislation 
may  properly  be  addressed  in  an  indirect  and  tentative 
way.  We  have  no  place  here  to  be  discussing  the  laws 
which  affect  the  tenure  of  land.  But  if  we  find  that 
country  folk  are  continuously  over  generations  flocking 
into  cities,  and  that  under  all  conditions  and  in  spite  of 
the  discomforts  and  crowding  of  cities,  it  must  be  that 
country  people  do  not  find  themselves  happy  in  their 
country  homes.  The  well-to-do  and  the  well  educated 
show  no  tendency  to  crowd  into  cities :  but  very  much 
the  reverse.  Hence  we  have  the  singular  phenomenon 
that  whilst  the  rich  townsmen  are  hurrying  to  pass  their 
lives  in  the  country,  the  poor  countrymen  are  hurrying 
into  the  cities.  It  may  well  be  that,  however  great  the 
drawbacks  and  discomforts  of  modern  cities,  and  how- 
ever poor  the  social  life  they  afford,  the  modern  country 

R 


258  THE   <  ITV    IN    HISTORY 

village  may  offer  even  less  entertainment  and  fewer 
opportunities  of  social  life.  If  that  is  so,  it  is  a  thing 
that  can  be  remedied  indirectly  by  legislation,  and 
mainly  by  a  higher  sense  of  social  obligation  on  the 
part  of  all  who  live  in  the  country.  If  great  landowners 
had  taken  up  the  lead  which  in  feudal  times  they 
possessed  and  had  proved  themselves  lords  of  the 
manor  in  any  but  a  pecuniary  sense,  the  draining  off  of 
the  country  population  into  the  towns  could  never  have 
become  the  prominent  fact  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

A  city  ought  to  provide  for  its  citizens  air,  water, 
light — absolutely  pure,  unlimited  in  quantity  and  gratu- 
itous to  all.  There  is  no  good  reason  why  water  should 
be  sold  (at  anyrate  in  public  places)  more  than  air,  or 
light,  or  highways.  Air,  light,  highways,  water,  are  the 
primary  conditions  of  civilisation.  It  is  the  interest 
of  all  that  every  citizen  should  have  as  much  of  these 
as  he  wants.  There  is  no  better  reason  to  compel  an 
individual  citizen  to  buy  water  for  sanitary  uses  than  to 
compel  him  separately  to  pay  for  a  walk  in  Hyde  Park 
or  a  passage  across  London  Bridge.  In  feudal  times 
there  were  tolls  upon  everything.  A  high  civilisation 
abolishes  tolls  and  furnishes  the  necessaries  of  life  to  all 
equally.  Now  air,  light,  roads,  and  water  stand  on  a 
different  footing  from  food  and  clothes.  Food  and 
clothing  are  produced  in  separate  pieces,  are  infinitely 
varied,  and  are  adapted  to  an  infinite  variety  of  personal 
wants  and  tastes.  A  loaf  of  bread,  a  beef-steak,  a  jug 
of  beer,  are  individually  produced  and  individually  con- 
sumed. They  remain  ear-marked,  identifiable,  trans- 
ferable, and  the  subject  of  property,  and  of  commerce. 
Air,  light,  water,  passage  (in  their  public  and  collective 
use),  have  not  this  character :  and  their  public  use 
should  be  free  to  all  citizens. 


THE    IDEAL   CITY  259 

We  need  the  Roman  system  of  water  supply.  Abun- 
dant and  pure  rivers  from  the  mountains  should  be 
carried  into  the  city,  with  fountains,  baths,  wash-houses 
free  in  every  ward  without  stint.  The  Roman  aqueducts 
are  one  of  the  few  features  of  material  civilisation  which 
have  never  been  revived  by  any  later  age.  We  are  still 
suffering  under  the  mediaeval  horror  of  washing.  When 
we  had  again  adequate  aqueducts  we  might  hope  to  see 
the  rivers  and  brooks  that  pass  through  our  cities  bright 
and  clear  like  a  trout  stream,  and  '  silver  Thames '  cease 
to  be  a  term  of  reproach.  Every  chimney  would  con- 
sume its  own  smoke  ;  every  sewer  would  be  wholesome, 
for  all  noxious  gases  would  be  pumped  up  into  safe 
spaces  ;  all  refuse  would  be  straightway  disinfected  and 
consumed.  To  use  a  stream  as  a  drain,  to  discharge 
refuse  into  any  public  place  or  course,  to  emit  noisome 
odours  or  dangerous  gases  into  any  public  thing,  to  do 
or  to  suffer  anything  that  could  spread  infection  would 
be  high  treason  against  humanity  visited  with  the 
extreme  rigour  of  the  law. 

The  whole  conditions  of  our  industrial  life  would  be 
reorganised  ;  till  our  factory  and  workshop  habits  would 
be  as  repulsive  to  our  descendants  as  a  mediaeval  charnel- 
house  is  to  us  to-day.  It  is  not  merely  in  the  matter 
of  hours  that  we  need  reform,  but  in  the  physical  and 
even  moral  conditions  of  work.  A  factory,  or  a  work- 
shop, wherein  men,  women,  and  children  are  employed 
day  by  day,  would  be  regarded  as  an  outrage  on  civil- 
isation, if  its  physical  conditions  were  not  as  free  from 
anything  that  can  endanger  health  as  the  drawing-room 
of  a  wealthy  family.  And  it  would  be  a  sort  of  public 
scandal  that  it  should  remain  as  repulsive  and  depress- 
ing as  the  average  cotton-mill  of  Lancashire. 

The  entire  treatment  of  sickness  and   of  mortality 


200  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

would  be  reorganised.  Every  house,  or  block  of  houses, 
for  the  collective  system  of  tenements  must  ultimately 
obtain  in  cities,  would  be  arranged  with  due  provision 
for  the  care  of  the  sick  and  of  the  dead.  Infirmaries, 
disinfectants,  ambulances,  mortuaries  on  a  large  scale, 
will  have  to  be  arranged,  systematically  and  scientifi- 
cally, both  for  public  and  for  private  use.  Our  houses 
and  blocks  will  be  provided  with  appliances  needful 
in  sickness,  accident,  birth,  convalescence,  and  death. 
Cremation  will  take  the  place  of  the  ghastly  system  of 
interment — Cremation  with  facilities  for  the  due  dis- 
posal of  the  ashes.  Cremation  has  made  but  little  way 
yet  in  superseding  the  growing  evils  of  interment,  be- 
cause it  has  not  yet  provided  for  the  religio  loci  and  the 
cherished  continuity  of  the  '  remains '  of  the  departed. 
Rightly  understood,  Cremation  offers  just  the  same 
opportunities  for  the  local  consecration  of  these  remains 
as  does  burial — the  same  opportunities  and  far  better. 
The  ashes  which  are  the  residuum  of  cremation  may  be 
treated  with  the  same  religious  reverence  that  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  show  to  the  putrescent  contents 
of  our  hideous  coffins — the  same  reverence  in  far  more 
beautiful  and  familiar  ways.  We  have  made  the  fatal 
mistake  of  assuming  that  the  proper  care  of  our  dead 
ends  with  the  furnace  of  the  Crematorium.  No  more  so 
than  it  ends  with  the  undertaker's  hearse.  The  pure 
ashes  of  the  beloved  dead  must  be  reverently  inclosed 
in  urns  or  sarcophagi  of  any  kind  we  choose :  and  these 
urns  with  the  innocent  ashes  within  may  be  placed  in 
cemeteries,  if  we  prefer,  or  better  still  in  columbaria  and 
chapels  in  the  beautiful  Campo  Santos  that  will  arise  in 
the  precincts  and  public  places  of  the  city  itself. 

The  hospital  system  must  be  revised.     Every  hospital 
would  be   strictly  isolated — placed    in   the   purest   air, 


THE   IDEAL  CITY  26 1 

incapable  of  spreading  infection,  and  arranged  for  con- 
stant and  radical  disinfection.  For  many  purposes,  it 
would  consist  mainly  of  movable  iron  sheds  in  some 
open  ground,  continually  removed,  constantly  purified, 
and  the  consumable  parts  burnt.  Into  these  infirmaries 
the  sick  would  be  carried  by  railways,  specially  con- 
structed on  the  ambulance  system.  A  few  accident  or 
special  wards  might  be  retained  in  isolated  buildings,  in 
convenient  spots  in  the  city,  for  emergencies  or  definite 
cases.  But  all  men  of  science  know  the  inevitable  evils 
of  vast  hospitals  in  the  midst  of  crowded  cities.  The 
system  continues,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  sick,  but  for 
the  convenience  of  the  staff,  and  for  facilities  of  access 
generally.  An  abnormal  death-rate  in  the  hospital,  and 
continual  infection  around  it,  are  still  endured,  in  order 
that  the  medical  attendants  and  their  pupils  may  have 
their  cases  at  hand,  that  the  organisation  of  a  complex 
system  of  carriage  may  be  avoided,  and  partly  no  doubt 
that  the  world  may  have  ever  before  their  eyes,  in 
some  conspicuous  site  in  the  city,  a  pompous  and  costly 
edifice,  which,  on  scientific  grounds,  should  never  be 
placed  any  where  at  all,  and  least  of  all  on  that  central 
spot.  To  expose  a  family  to  infection,  to  spread  con- 
tagion in  a  district,  by  the  treatment  of  the  sick,  or  the 
dead,  or  by  any  kind  of  refuse,  to  pollute  open  water,  on 
a  public  way  or  place,  would  be  an  act  of  ruffianism  and 
sacrilege  at  once.  Sickness  from  all  forms  of  infection 
and  contagion  would  be  reduced  to  the  minimum  of 
inevitable  accident.  The  death-rate  of  such  a  city 
would  fall  from  20  or  30  per  thousand  to  12  or  14  per 
thousand. 

Next  to  pure  air,  water,  sunlight,  free  ways,  and  pro- 
tection against  blood-poisoning,  human  life  needs  exer- 
cise and  recreation  for  body  and  limb.  The  city  of  the 


262  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

future  will  have  its  squares,  gardens,  parks,  play-grounds, 
and  gymnastic  courts,  free  to  all,  and  within  reach  of  all. 
No  child,  boy,  or  girl  will  be  forced  to  play  in  a  gutter  ; 
no  youths  will  be  reduced  to  lounge  about  the  street. 
The  play-ground  will  be  open  to  all,  and  almost  within 
a  mile  of  the  house,  or  it  will  be  almost  useless.  There 
are  two  towns  in  England  where  that  great  institution, 
the  Play-ground,  is  adequately  developed :  these  are 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  where  some  think  it  is  almost 
overdone  ;  and  Leicester,  Derby,  and  some  Midland  and 
Northern  towns  are  not  wholly  unprovided.  But  the 
opportunities  which  have  long  been  secured  to  a  few 
rich  students,  and  to  some  sportsmen  elsewhere,  will  be 
open  to  all  citizens  in  the  city  of  the  future,  as  they  were 
at  Athens,  Sparta,  Syracuse,  or  Rome. 

A  city,  worthy  of  such  a  name,  should  offer  to  all  its 
citizens  noble  public  buildings,  and  impressive  monu- 
ments within  the  reach  of  all.  The  ancient  rule  was  to 
live  at  home  in  simple  lodgings,  and  in  public  to  have 
ever  in  view  beautiful  and  stately  public  buildings — 

'  Privatus  illis  census  erat  brevis — 
Commune  magnum.' 

We  reverse  all  this.  We  put  the  extreme  of  luxury  that 
we  can  command  into  our  homes,  and  we  starve  our 
public  places.  In  the  ancient  world,  to  present  noble 
monuments  continually  to  the  eyes  of  the  citizens,  was 
regarded  as  one  of  the  main  uses  of  a  City.  With  us, 
public  monuments  are  too  often  suspected  of  being  a 
corporation  job,  the  means  of  getting  some  obscure 
artist  a  commission,  or  furnishing  the  Mayor  with  a 
knighthood,  when  the  Prince  or  Princess  '  inaugurates ' 
the  opening  ceremony.  '  Inaugurate '  once  meant  a 
solemn  and  auspicious  religious  act.  In  Athens,  Rome, 


THE    IDEAL   CITY  263 

Florence,  Venice,  Verona,  Cologne,  Rouen,  or  Winchester 
— that  is  in  classical  or  in  mediaeval  ages — the  possession 
of  a  noble  city,  crowded  with  splendid  and  historic 
monuments,  was  the  cherished  birthright  of  the  citizen — 
a  potent  source  of  civilisation.  As  it  was  once — so  it 
will  be  again  ! 

The  citizen  of  the  future  will  live  in  a  City,  through 
which  silver  streams  will  flow,  in  which  the  air  will  be 
spotless  of  soot,  when  water  will  bubble  forth  in  foun- 
tains and  reservoirs  at  every  corner,  where  gardens, 
promenades,  open  squares,  flowers,  green  lawns,  porticoes, 
and  noble  monuments  will  abound  ;  the  air  and  water 
as  fresh  as  at  Bern,  with  gardens,  statues  as  plentiful  as 
they  are  in  Paris,  and  more  beautiful  in  art.  At  Rome, 
the  citizen  was  reminded  at  every  turn  of  his  country's 
history  by  some  monument,  shrine,  bust,  or  statue. 
There  is  but  one  city  of  the  modern  world — the  French 
capital,  where  any  attempt  is  made  to  develop  this 
noble  instrument  of  city  life. 

Museums,  statues,  galleries,  colleges,  schools,  and 
public  halls,  will  no  longer  be  concentrated  in  overgrown 
capitals  ;  they  will  be  universal  in  every  moderate  town. 
No  town  would  be  worth  living  in,  if  it  does  not  offer  a 
free  library,  a  good  art-gallery,  lecture  and  music  halls, 
baths,  and  gymnasia — free  to  all  and  within  reach  of  all. 
To  use  all  these,  we  shall  need  a  day  of  rest  in  the 
week,  as  well  as  a  day  of  worship  on  Sunday.  Every 
citizen  will  be  free  of  all  the  resources  needed  to  cultivate 
his  body,  his  mind,  his  heart : — his  enjoyment  of  life, 
health,  skill,  and  grace,  his  sense  of  beauty,  his  desire 
for  society,  his  thirst  for  knowledge.  If  he  does  not  use 
these  resources,  the  fault  will  be  his. 

These  things  are  not  to  be  had  by  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, nor  by  multiplying  Inspectors,  nor  perhaps  by  any 


264  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

single  machinery  whatever.  Ideals  are  realised  slowly, 
by  long  efforts,  after  many  failures  and  constant  mis- 
takes. To  reach  ideals  we  have  to  reach  a  higher  social 
morality,  an  enlarged  conception  of  human  life,  a  more 
humane  type  of  religious  duty. 


CHAPTER    IX 

ROME     REVISITED1 

HE  who  revisits  Rome  to-day  in  these  busy  times  of 
King  Umberto,  having  known  the  Eternal  City  of  the 
last  generation  in  the  torpid  reign  of  Pio  Nono,  cannot 
stifle  the  poignant  sense  of  having  lost  one  of  the  most 
rare  visions  that  this  earth  had  ever  to  present.  The 
Colosseum,  it  is  true,  the  Forum,  the  Vatican,  and  St. 
Peter's  are  there  still ;  the  antiquarians  make  constant 
new  discoveries — fresh  sites,  statues,  palaces,  tombs, 
and  museums,  are  year  by  year  revealed  to  the  eager 
tourist ;  and  many  a  cloister  and  chapel,  once  hermeti- 
cally closed,  is  now  a  public  show.  But  the  light  and 
poetry  have  gone  out  of  Rome  for  ever.  Vast  historic 
convents  are  cold  and  silent  as  the  grave,  and  the  Papal 
city  is  like  a  mediaeval  town  under  interdict.  French 
boulevards  are  being  driven  through  the  embattled 
strongholds  of  Colonnas  and  Orsinis,  and  omnibus  and 
tram-car  roll  through  the  Forum  of  Trajan,  and  by 
the  Golden  House  of  Nero.  The  yellow  Tiber  now 
peacefully  flows  between  granite  quays,  but  the 
mouldering  palaces  and  the  festooned  arches  that 
Piranesi  loved  have  been  improved  away. 

One  who  is  neither  codino,  ultramontane,  nor  pessi- 
mist, may  still  utter  one  groan  of  regret  for  the  halo 
that  once  enveloped  Rome.  We  may  know  that  it  was 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  May  1893,  No.  317,  vol.  liii. 


266  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

inevitable,  that  it  was  the  price  of  a  nation's  life,  and 
yet  feel  the  sorrow  which  is  due  to  the  passing  away  of 
some  majestic  thing  that  the  world  can  never  see  again. 
It  is  now  twenty  years  since  the  late  Professor  Freeman, 
then  visiting  Rome  for  the  first  time,  wrote  as  his  fore- 
cast that  if  Rome,  as  the  capital  of  Italy,  should  grow 
and  flourish,  a  great  part  of  its  unique  charm  would  be 
lost,  and  the  havoc  to  be  wrought  in  its  antiquities 
would  be  frightful.  The  havoc  is  wrought ;  the  charm 
is  gone,  in  spite  of  startling  discoveries  and  whole 
museums  full  of  new  antiquities.  It  had  to  be. 

In  the  space  of  some  thirty  years  I  have  visited 
Rome  four  times,  at  long  intervals,  and  each  time  I 
groan  anew.  I  was  Italianissimo  in  my  hot  youth,  and 
I  am  assuredly  not  Papalino  in  my  maturer  age.  I 
rejoice  with  the  new  life  of  the  Italian  people  ;  I  know 
that  for  the  regenerated  nation  Rome  is  essential  as  its 
capital  ;  I  know  that  a  growing  modern  city  must  wear 
the  aspect  of  modern  civilisation.  I  repudiate  the 
whining  of  sentimentalists  over  the  conditions  of 
modern  progress ;  and  the  advice  which  Napoleon's 
creatures  gave  to  the  Romans, '  to  be  content  with  the 
contemplation  of  their  ruins,'  has  the  true  ring  of  an 
oppressor.  We  acknowledge  all  that,  and  are  no  ob- 
scurantists to  shudder  at  a  railroad  with  Ruskinian 
affectation.  But  yet,  to  those  who  loved  the  poetry 
of  old  Papal  Rome,  the  prose  of  the  modernised  new 
Rome  is  a  sad  and  instructive  memory. 

When  I  first  saw  Rome,  it  was  not  connected  by  any 
railway  with  Northern  Italy.  We  had  to  travel  by  the 
road,  and  I  cannot  forget  the  weird  effect  of  that  Roman 
Maremma,  purple  and  crimson  with  an  autumn  sunset ; 
the  buffaloes,  and  the  wild  cattlemen  and  pecorari  in 
sheepskins  ;  the  old-world  coaches  and  postilions ;  the 


ROME   REVISITED  267 

desolate  plain  broken  by  ruins  and  castles ;  the  mediaeval 
absurdities  of  Papal  officialism  ;  the  suffumigations  and 
the  visas ;  the  cumbrous  pomposity  of  some  Roman 
principi  returning  from  villeggiatura — it  was  as  though 
one  had  passed  by  enchantment  into  the  seventeenth 
century,  with  its  picturesque  barbarism,  and  one  quite 
expected  a  guerilla  band  of  horsemen  to  issue  from  the 
castle  of  Montalto. 

And  then  Rome  itself,  so  perfectly  familiar  that  it 
seemed  like  a  mere  returning  to  the  old  haunt  of  child- 
hood, with  its  fern-clad  ruins  standing  in  open  spaces, 
gardens,  or  vineyards  ;  the  huge  solitudes  within  the 
walls  ;  the  cattle  and  the  stalls  beneath  the  trees  on  the 
Campo  Vaccino,  forty  feet  above  the  spot  where  now 
professors  lecture  to  crowds  in  the  recent  excavations  ; 
the  grotesque  parade  of  cardinals  and  monsignori ;  the 
narrow,  ill-lighted  streets  ;  the  swarm  of  monks,  friars, 
and  prelates  of  every  order  and  race ;  the  air  of 
mouldering*  abandonment  in  the  ancient  city,  as  of 
some  corner  of  mediaeval  Europe  left  forgotten  and 
untouched  by  modern  progress,  with  all  the  historic 
glamour,  the  pictorial  squalor,  the  Turkish  routine,  all 
the  magnificence  of  obsolete  forms  of  civilisation  which 
clung  round  the  Vatican  and  were  seen  there  only  in 
Western  Europe. 

It  had  to  go,  and  it  is  gone ;  and  Rome,  in  twenty  or 
thirty  years,  has  become  like  any  other  European  city 
big,  noisy,  vulgar,  overgrown,  Frenchified,  and  syndicate- 
ridden,  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  Lyons  or  Turin, 
except  that  it  has  in  the  middle  of  its  streets  some 
enormous  masses  of  ruin,  many  huge,  empty  convents, 
and  some  vast  churches,  apparently  abandoned  by  the 
Church.  But  the  ruins,  which  used  to  stand  in  a  rural 
solitude  like  Stonehenge  or  Rievaulx,  are  now  mere 


268  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

piles  of  stone  in  crowded  streets,  like  the  Palais  des 
Thermes  at  Paris.  The  sacred  sites  of  Forum  and 
Roma  Quadrata  are  now  objects  in  a  museum.  The 
Cloaca  are  embedded  in  the  new  stone  quay,  and  are 
become  a  mere  '  exhibit,'  like  York  House  Water-Gate 
in  our  own  embankment.  The  wild  foliage  and  the 
memorial  altars  have  been  torn  out  of  the  Colosseum, 
and  the  JEllan  Bridge  is  overshadowed  by  a  new  iron 
enormity.  Rome,  which,  thirty  years  ago,  was  a  vision 
of  the  past,  is  to-day  a  busy  Italian  town,  with  a  dozen 
museums,  striving  to  become  a  third-rate  Paris. 

The  mediaeval  halo  is  gone,  but  the  hard  facts  remain. 
For  to  the  historian  Rome  must  always  be  the  central 
city  of  this  earth — the  spot  towards  which  all  earlier 
history  of  mankind  must  in  the  end  converge — from 
which  all  modern  history  must  issue.  Rome  is  the  true 
microcosm,  wherein  the  vast  panorama  of  human 
civilisation  is  reflected  as  on  a  mirror.  It  is  this 
diversity,  continuity,  and  world-wide  range  of  interest 
which  place  it  apart  above  all  other  cities  of  men. 
This  one  is  more  lovely,  that  one  is  more  complete ; 
another  city  is  vaster,  or  another  has  some  unique  and 
special  glory.  But  no  other  city  of  the  world  approaches 
Rome  in  the  enormous  span  of  its  history,  and  in  this 
character  of  being  the  centre,  as  the  Greeks  said  the 
ofjL<f)d\6<;,  if  not  of  this  planet,  at  least  of  Europe. 

From  this  point  of  view,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
recent  changes  which  have  destroyed  the  poetry  of 
Rome  have  greatly  enlarged  its  antiquarian  interest. 
What  the  poet  and  the  painter  have  lost  the  historian 
has  gained.  Regarded  as  a  museum  of  archaeology, 
the  city  is  far  richer  to  the  student.  And  that  not 
merely  by  multiplication  of  remains,  statues,  and 
carvings,  similar  to  what  we  had,  but  by  new  dis- 


ROME   REVISITED  269 

coveries  which  have  modified  our  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  the  city.  The  continually  growing  mass  of 
pre-historic  relics,  the  Etruscan  tombs  and  foundations 
on  the  Aventine  and  the  Esquiline,  the  early  fortifica- 
tions of  the  Palatine,  the  remains  of  regal  Rome,  the 
systematic  exploration  of  the  Forum  and  the  Palatine, 
the  house  of  the  vestals,  the  contents  of  the  Kircher 
Museum,  and  of  the  new  Museum  in  the  baths  of 
Diocletian,  the  excavation  of  the  Colosseum,  and  of  the 
palace  of  Nero,  the  complete  tracing  of  the  Servian 
circumvallation,  and  all  that  has  been  done  to  reopen 
cemeteries  and  tombs — have  given  a  new  range  and 
distinctness  to  the  history  of  Rome  as  a  whole. 

We  must  now  extend  that  history  backwards  by 
centuries  before  the  mythical  age  of  Romulus  and  his 
tribesmen  on  the  Palatine  ;  and  we  know  that  some- 
where on  the  Seven  Hills  there  once  dwelt  one  of  the 
most  ancient  pre-historic  races  of  Europe.  Even  the 
speculative  builder  and  the  hated  railroads  have  en- 
riched the  museums  and  opened  unexpected  treasures 
to  the  antiquarian.  One  is  forced  to  confess  that  .to 
historical  research  new  fields  have  been  opened,  even 
whilst  the  unique  vision  of  the  Eternal  City  faded  away 
as  quickly  as  a  winter  sunset.  The  Caesars  found 
Rome  of  brick,  and  left  it  of  marble.  The  House  of 
Savoy  found  it  a  majestic  ruin  ;  they  have  made  it  an 
inexhaustible  museum. 

Compare  Rome  with  other  famous  cities,  which  far 
surpass  it  in  mediaeval  associations — with  Florence, 
Venice,  Rouen,  Oxford,  Prague.  They  present  at  most 
four  or  five  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  vivid 
power  and  charm  :  but  this  is  only  one  chapter  in  the 
history  of  Rome.  Athens,  Constantinople,  Venice,  are 
more  beautiful.  And  if  Constantinople  surpasses  Rome 


2/0  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

in  the  dramatic  contrast  of  Asia  and  Europe,  and  the 
secular  combat  between  the  East  and  the  West,  Byzan- 
tium was  but  a  late  imitation  of  Rome,  and  the  tremen- 
dous scenes  which  the  Bosphorus  has  witnessed  seem 
but  episodes  when  compared  with  the  long  annals  of 
the  Tiber.  Constantinople,  indeed,  was  a  Rome  trans- 
ported bodily  to  the  East.  Paris  and  London  certainly 
surpass  Rome  in  that  they  record  a  thousand  years  of 
the  destiny  of  nations  still  growing,  and  that  we  can 
hear  in  their  streets  the  surging  of  a  mighty  life  to 
which  that  of  Rome  is  now  a  poor  provincial  copy. 
But  the  thousand  years  of  Paris  and  of  London  are  but 
a  span  in  the  countless  years  of  the  Eternal  City.  All 
roads  lead  to  Rome :  all  capitals  aim  at  reviving  the 
image  and  effect  of  the  Imperial  City :  all  history  ends 
with  Rome,  or  begins  with  Rome. 

There  are  three  elements  wherein  the  historical  value 
of  Rome  surpasses  that  of  any  extant  city :  first,  the 
enormous  continuity  of  its  history ;  next,  the  diver- 
sity of  that  interest ;  and  lastly,  the  cosmopolitan  range 
of  its  associations.  These  hill-crests  beside  the  Tiber 
have  been  the  home  of  a  disciplined  people  (we  must 
now  believe)  for  some  three  thousand  years,  and  it  may 
well  be  much  more  ;  and  during  the  whole  of  that  vast 
period  there  has  been  no  absolute  or  prolonged  break. 
Athens,  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  Damascus,  Alexandria, 
Syracuse,  Marseilles,  and  York,  whatever  they  may  once 
have  been,  whatever  they  may  have  recently  become, 
fell  out  of  the  vision  of  history  for  long  centuries 
together,  like  some  variable  star  out  of  heaven,  and 
sank  into  insignificance  and  oblivion.  To  very  many 
the  city  of  David  and  of  the  Passion  has  absorbing 
interests,  such  as  no  other  spot  on  earth  can  approach  ; 
just  as  to  the  scholar  the  scene  from  the  Pnyx  at 


ROME    REVISITED  2/1 

Athens  calls  up  a  sum  of  memories  of  unique  intensity 
and  delight.  But  the  four  transcendent  centuries,  when 
Athens  was  the  eye  of  Greece,  the  eye  of  the  thinking 
world,  were  followed  by  a  thousand  years  when  Athens 
was  an  obscure  village ;  and  if  the  ancient  history  of 
Jerusalem  was  longer  than  that  of  Athens,  it  has  been 
followed  by  a  still  more  overwhelming  fall. 

All  other  famous  cities  of  the  ancient  world  have  waned 
and  fallen,  in  some  cases,  as  with  Athens,  Alexandria, 
and  Marseilles,  to  rise  again  out  of  a  sleep  of  ages.  Or 
if,  like  Paris  and  London,  they  are  growing  still,  it  is 
during  some  four  or  five  centuries  only  that  they  have 
been  the  foremost  cities  of  the  world.  But  for  two 
thousand  years  Rome  has  enjoyed  an  unbroken  pre- 
eminence, for  five  centuries  as  the  temporal  mistress  of 
the  civilised  world,  and  for  some  fifteen  centuries  as 
the  spiritual  head  of  the  Catholic  world.  This  dominant 
place  in  human  evolution,  prolonged  over  such  immense 
periods  of  time  in  unbroken  continuity,  makes  Rome 
the  spot  on  earth  where  the  story  of  civilisation  can  be 
locally  centred  and  visibly  recorded. 

This  is  the  real  power  and  the  true  lesson  of  Rome ; 
and  in  a  dim  way,  it  was  felt  by  our  ancestors  who  in 
the  olden  days  made  the  '  grand  tour '  to  enrich  their 
galleries  and  to  confer  with  virtuosi,  or  who  in  a  later 
age  followed  the  footsteps  of  Corinne,  Goethe,  and 
Byron.  Something  of  the  kind  remained  down  to  the 
time  of  Pio  Nono.  There  was  still  a  certain  unity  of 
effect  in  Rome;  and  even  the  more  frivolous  tourists 
had  some  sense  of  that  over-mastering  human  destiny 
which  caused  Byron  to  break  forth — 

'  O  Rome,  my  country,  city  of  the  soul ! ' 
But  all  that  has  happened  in  the  last  twenty  years  has 


2/2  THE  CITY   IN   HISTORY 

destroyed  that  visual  impression.  The  sudden  swelling 
forth  of  the  city  into  a  modern  busy  town  three  or  four 
times  larger  than  the  old  sleepy  city  of  the  popes,  the 
suppression  of  the  convents  and  the  external  ceremonial, 
and  the  sullen  withdrawal  of  the  Papacy,  the  deadly 
war  between  modern  democracy  and  ultramontane 
ecclesiasticism,  the  flooding  of  the  old  city  with  the 
triumphs  of  the  modern  builder,  and  the  Haussmanni- 
sation  of  the  most  romantic  of  European  cities — all  this 
has  made  it  an  effort  of  the  abstract  mind  to  look  on 
Rome  as  the  historic  capital ;  and  as  to  the  '  city  of  the 
soul,'  one  might  as  easily  imagine  it  at  Lyons,  Milan, 
or  indeed  Chicago.  And  thus,  the  recent  modernisation 
of  Rome  has  destroyed  the  sense  of  historical  con- 
tinuity, that  unique  effect  of  Rome  as  '  mother  of  dead 
empires,'  and  all  that  Byron  poured  out  with  his  pas- 
sionate imagination  and  his  scrambling  rhymes.  In 
the  days  of  Byron,  Goethe,  and  Shelley,  as  it  had  been 
in  the  days  of  Claude,  of  Piranesi,  of  Madame  de  Stael, 
and  Gibbon,  as  it  still  was  down  to  the  days  of  Andersen, 
Hawthorne,  and  Browning,  Rome  was  itself  a  poem  :  a 
sombre,  majestic,  most  moving  dirge — but  an  artistic 
whole — a  poem.  The  Italian  kingdom  and  modern 
progress  have  made  it  a  capital  up-to-date,  with  a  most 
voluminous  Dictionary  of  Antiquities. 

But  the  new  edition  of  the  Dictionary  of  Antiquities, 
as  edited  by  the  House  of  Savoy,  from  1870  to  1893, 
is  immensely  enlarged  and  almost  rewritten.  The 
brain  may  still  recover  more  than  the  eye  has  lost. 
But  it  has  become  a  strain  on  the  imagination  in  the 
last  decade  of  this  century  to  revive  in  the  mind's  eye 
that  historic  continuity  of  the  Eternal  City,  which  till 
past  the  middle  of  this  century  was  vividly  presented 
even  to  the  uninstructed  eye.  And  the  melancholy 


ROME   REVISITED  273 

result  is  this — that  Rome  to-day  is  parcelled  out  into 
heterogeneous  and  discordant  sections,  which  of  old 
were  simply  impressive  contrasts  in  the  same  picture  ; 
and  they  who  visit  Rome  with  some  special  interest 
find  nothing  to  attract  them  to  the  rival  interests  and 
the  antagonistic  worlds. 

They  who  go  to  Rome  for  the  same  reasons  that  they 
go  to  Paris  or  Vienna,  see  little  at  Rome  more  than  in 
any  other  European  capital,  unless  it  be  a  few  masses 
of  ruins,  and  some  enormous  palaces  and  churches. 
The  scholar  and  the  antiquarian  buries  himself  in 
museums,  libraries,  or  excavations ;  and  to-day  it  hardly 
strikes  him  at  all  that  he  is  in  the  palpitating  heart  of 
Christendom,  or  that  he  is  passing  blindfold  amidst 
some  of  the  most  poetic  scenes  in  the  world.  Of  old 
this  pathos  and  charm  pierced  even  the  dullest  pedant's 
heart ;  but  now,  with  avenues,  tram-cars,  electric  light- 
ing, and  miles  of  American  hotels,  he  does  not  notice 
in  modern  Rome  the  rare  glimpses  of  mediaeval  Rome. 
And  the  Catholic  pilgrim  is  so  hot  with  rage  and  fore- 
boding that  to  ask  him  to  acknowledge  either  beauty  or 
interest  outside  the  cause  of  the  Vatican,  is  a  heartless 
mockery  of  all  that  he  holds  highest.  And  thus  Rome, 
which  to  our  fathers  had  the  soothing  effect  of  a 
Mass  by  Palestrina  or  a  glowing  sunset  after  storm, 
now  fills  us  with  the  sense  of  deadly  passions,  coarse 
desecration  of  what  man  has  long  held  sacred,  the  in- 
congruous mixture  of  irreconcilable  ideas  and  mutual 
scorn.  Bruno  and  Mazzini  jostle  Loyola  and  the 
Bambino.  Tramways  and  iron  bridges  override  basilicas 
and  temples. 

It  is  all  the  more  needful  then  for  those  who  love  the 
great  historic  cities  and  their  lessons  to  strive  against 
the  sectional  aspects  of  Rome  and  to  insist  on  its 

S 


2/4  THE    CITY    IN    HISTORY 

historic  unity,  in  spite  of  the  ravages  of  modern  pro- 
gress. Many,  of  course,  will  still  go  to  Rome  for  its 
picnics  or  the  court  balls  of  Queen  Margherita,  to  hunt 
the  fox  or  to  pick  up  a  curio,  to  copy  a  manuscript  or  a 
Guido,  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  Pope,  or  to  crawl  up 
the  Scala  Santa.  But  the  truth  remains  that,  for  those 
who  have  eyes  to  see,  the  pre-eminence  of  Rome  as  a 
city  consists  in  the  combination  and  succession  of  all 
its  varied  interests.  And  although  the  continuity  of  its 
history  is  now  far  less  directly  conspicuous,  and  although 
on  the  surface  Rome  has  now  been  promoted  (or  de- 
graded) to  the  level  of  any  other  European  capital,  the 
record  of  the  past  is  becoming  far  richer  and  more 
legible  for  those  who  with  patience  continue  to  read  it ; 
and  it  is  still  possible  to  forget  ambitious  municipalism 
and  the  pandemonium  of  the  jerry-builder,  even  whilst 
accepting  the  mosaics  and  the  bronzes  their  workmen 
have  turned  up,  and  the  walls  of  the  kings  which  they 
have  laid  bare  and  pierced. 

The  various  interests  all  group  themselves  under 
three  heads :  the  Rome  of  antiquity,  the  Rome  of  the 
Church,  the  Rome  of  poetry,  romance,  architecture, 
painting,  sculpture,  music.  Down  to  the  middle  of 
this  century,  these  were  blended  unconsciously  into  a 
certain  harmony ;  and  it  was  the  mysterious  unison  of 
these  separate  chords  which  has  inspired  so  much 
poetry  and  art  from  the  age  of  the  Farnesina  down 
to  that  of  Transformation.  Since  the  middle  of  the 
century  and  the  tremendous  events  of  1849,  it  has 
been  an  effort  of  the  imagination  to  catch  the  harmony 
rather  than  discord.  And  in  the  last  twenty  years, 
since  the  entrance  of  the  king  of  Italy,  the  effort  has 
become  year  by  year  more  difficult.  But  with  patience 
it  may  still  be  done.  And  we  may  yet  venture  to  plead 


ROME   REVISITED  275 

for  Rome  that,  shorn  as  she  is  of  her  old  unique  magic 
and  power,  she  remains  still  the  greatest  historical 
school  in  the  world,  and  has  not  even  yet  descended 
to  the  level  of  Nice  or  Homburg. 

The  visible  record  of  antiquity  is  continuous  for  at 
least  a  thousand  years — indeed  between  the  Column  of 
Phocas  and  the  earliest  tombs  we  may  possibly  count 
an  interval  far  longer.  For  five  centuries  at  least,  down 
to  the  final  completion  of  the  Rome  of  the  East,  Rome 
of  the  West  was  the  spot  where  the  whole  force  of  the 
ancient  world  was  concentrated — its  wealth,  its  art,  its 
science,  its  material,  intellectual,  and  moral  power.  This 
planet  has  never  witnessed  before  or  since  such  con- 
centration on  one  spot  of  the  earth  as  took  place  about 
the  age  of  Trajan,  and  let  us  trust  it  will  never  witness 
it  again.  From  the  Clyde  to  the  Euphrates,  from  the 
Caucasus  to  the  Sahara,  the  earth  was  ransacked  for  all 
that  was  pleasant,  beautiful,  or  useful,  whether  in  the 
produce  of  nature  or  in  the  arts  of  man.  And  it  was 
flung  down  together  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber  with  a 
wild  profusion  and  with  a  lavish  magnificence  which  has 
never  been  equalled,  though  sometimes  imitated. 

To  that  dazzling  world  of  power,  beauty,  luxury,  and 
vice,  there  succeeded  the  Christian  Church  with  its 
fifteen  centuries  of  unbroken  organic  life.  This — far 
the  longest  and  most  important  movement  in  the  history 
of  mankind — yet  forms  but  one  element  in  the  history 
of  the  Eternal  City,  and  the  one  element  which  to  most 
Protestant  tourists  is  the  least  conspicuous,  if  not  almost 
forgotten.  But  the  succession  of  spiritual  empire  to 
the  inheritance  of  temporal  empire  in  Rome  is  perhaps 
of  all  phenomena  in  history  the  most  fascinating  and 
the  most  profound,  with  its  subtle  analogies  and  infinite 
contrasts,  with  its  sublime  profession  of  disdain  and  its 


276  TIIK    CITY    IN    HISTORY 

irresistible  instinct  for  adaptation,  its  savage  spirit  of 
destruction  combined  with  an  unconscious  genius  of 
imitation.  For  the  Church  took  the  classical  form  for 
its  model,  and  ended  by  setting  it  up  as  a  revelation, 
even  whilst  engaged  in  cursing  it  in  words  and  de- 
molishing it  in  act. 

That  New  Birth  of  free  life  which  we  call  Humanism, 
or  the  Revival,  or  Renascence,  was  soon  drawn  towards 
Rome,  and  indeed  for  a  time  had  its  inspiration  from 
the  Papal  world  itself.  Though  Rome  was  not  its 
birthplace  nor  in  any  sense  its  natural  home,  yet  Rome 
drew  to  herself  the  Tuscan  and  Lombard  genius  as  she 
had  drawn  the  Attic  and  the  Alexandrian  genius  to 
her  before ;  and  thus  Rome  became  at  last  the  great 
theatre  for  the  Renascence,  the  stage  whence  its  most 
potent  influence  over  Europe  was  manifested  and  shed 
abroad.  Not  that  any  Roman  approached  in  genius 
the  great  Florentines  or  Venetians,  or  that  Rome  was 
at  any  time  so  noble  a  school  of  imagination  as  Florence 
or  Venice,  or  even  Siena  or  Verona.  But  the  vast 
resources  collected  in  Rome,  the  fabulous  power  of  her 
great  ecclesiastics,  and  the  central  and  European  posi- 
tion she  held,  made  Rome  for  some  three  centuries  one 
of  the  main  adopted  cradles  of  the  Renascence.  And 
if  we  include  all  the  work  and  influence  of  Bramante, 
Michael  Angelo,  Raphael,  Bembo,  Cellini,  Palestrina, 
Guido,  Bernini,  the  architecture,  the  painting,  the  sculp- 
ture, the  mosaics,  the  engraving,  the  drama,  the  music, 
the  scholarship,  the  poetry,  Rome  must  be  counted  as 
the  most  influential  centre  of  the  Renascence. 

It  was  not  effected  by  native  Romans,  nor  was  it  the 
offspring  of  a  local  school.  Much  of  its  influence  was 
meretricious,  and  much  of  it  was  essentially  debasing. 
But  it  governed,  by  its  evil  as  much  as  by  its  strength, 


ROME   REVISITED 

the  thought  of  Europe  ;  and  if  we  take  the  whole  range 
of  art,  thought,  and  culture,  Rome  became  at  last  its 
most  prolific,  most  active,  and  most  varied  centre. 
Rome  was  the  destined  resort  of  artists  in  all  fields  for 
some  five  hundred  years,  from  Giotto  to  Mozart,  and 
the  magic  of  Rome  as  an  artistic  paradise  has  hardly 
yet  passed  away  in  Europe.  Nay,  if  we  consider  the 
vast  influence  over  all  subsequent  building  and  all  sub- 
sequent painting  of  St.  Peter's  Church  and  Raphael's 
designs,  and  of  church  ceremonial  and  music,  of  the 
classical  mania  and  of  romantic  poetry,  if  we  add  such 
minor  influences  as  those  of  Poussin,  Claude  Lorrain, 
Metastasio,  Piranesi,  Winckelmann,  Niebuhr,  Canova, 
and  Thorwaldsen,  we  see  at  once  how  largely  Rome  has 
been  the  clearing-house  for  the  popularisation  of  art  in 
the  last  three  centuries. 

Much  of  it  was  artificial,  theatrical  and  feeble.  But 
historically  its  development  is  curiously  full  of  interest, 
as  its  influence  over  the  modern  mind  has  been  almost 
without  a  limit.  Why  do  Catholic  worshippers  from 
Warsaw  to  Cadiz,  in  Santiago,  in  Mexico,  or  Manilla, 
admire  churches  with  a  rococo  jumble  of  gilded  domes 
and  pirouetting  saints  ?  Because  the  great  cinque-cento 
artists  built  up  St.  Peter's  as  we  see  it  to-day ;  and 
Jesuit  demagogues  developed  that  type  into  the  gilt 
pot-pourri  which  attracts  the  ignorant  Catholic  in  every 
corner  of  the  planet.  Florence  was  doubtless  the  birth- 
place and  nursery  of  Renascent  art.  But  directly  that  the 
Renascence  was  captured  and  transformed  by  Jesuitism, 
Rome  became  its  official  seat.  And  in  the  evolution  of 
human  art,  there  is  no  record  more  instructive  than  that 
still  stamped  on  the  churches  and  palaces  of  the  Eternal 
City. 

The  Rome  of  antiquity,  the  Rome  of  the  Church,  the 


2/8  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

Rome  of  modern  art  are  indeed  three  separate  worlds  ; 
and  it  is  their  contrast,  their  juxtaposition,  their  curious 
blending  of  mutual  hate  and  mutual  reaction,  which 
forms  the  most  instructive  page  of  all  history.  Each  of 
the  three  worlds  may  be  seen  in  a  more  intense  form 
elsewhere.  The  valley  of  the  Rhone  and  the  shores 
of  the  Adriatic  have  still  a  greater  mass  of  imperial 
remains  than  the  city  itself.  The  Apennine  hill  towns, 
and  perhaps  mediaeval  Paris,  have  a  truer  record  of  the 
Church.  And  Florence  is  the  true  cradle  of  modern 
art.  But  in  Rome  all  three  are  combined,  and  their 
continual  reaction,  one  on  the  other,  is  matter  for  inex- 
haustible thought. 

Rome,  as  a  city,  is  thus  a  visible  embodiment,  type, 
or  summary  of  human  history,  and,  in  these  days  of 
special  interests  or  tastes,  the  traveller  at  Rome  too 
often  forgets  this  world-wide  range  and  complexity. 
To  the  scholar  the  vast  world  of  Christian  Rome  is 
usually  as  utter  a  blank  as  to  the  Catholic  pilgrim 
is  the  story  of  Republic  and  Empire.  To  the  artist 
both  are  an  ancient  tale  of  little  meaning,  though  the 
words  are  strong.  He  who  loves  '  curios '  is  blind  too 
often  to  the  sunsets  on  the  Campagna.  And  he  who 
copies  inscriptions  is  deaf  to  the  music  of  the  people  in 
the  Piazza.  Navona,  or  the  evening  Angelus  rung  out 
from  a  hundred  steeples.  All  nations,  all  professions, 
all  creeds  jostle  each  other  in  Rome,  as  they  did  in  the 
age  of  Horace  and  Juvenal ;  and  they  pass  by  on  the 
other  side  with  mutual  contempt  for  each  other's 
interests  and  pursuits.  But  to  the  historical  mind  all 
have  their  interest,  almost  an  equal  interest,  and  their 
combination  and  contrasts  form  the  most  instructive 
lesson  which  Europe  can  present. 

We  have  had  whole  libraries  about  Rome  pictorial, 


ROME   REVISITED  279 

Rome  ecclesiastical,  Rome  artistic,  Rome  antiquarian  ; 
about  classical,  mediaeval,  papal,  cinque-cento,  rococo, 
modern  Rome.  There  is  still  room  for  a  book  about 
the  city  of  Rome  as  a  manual  of  history  ;  about  the 
infinite  variety  of  the  lessons  graven  on  its  stones  and 
its  soil ;  about  its  contrasts,  its  contradictions;  its 
immensity,  its  continuity ;  the  exquisite  pathos,  the 
appalling  waste,  folly,  cruelty,  recorded  in  that  roll  of 
memories  and  symbols.  Such  a  book  would  gather  up 
the  thoughts  which,  as  he  strolls  about  the  Eternal  City, 
throng  on  the  mind  of  every  student  of  human  nature, 
and  of  any  historian  who  is  willing  to  read  as  one  tale 
the  history  of  man  from  the  Stone  Age  down  to  Pope 
Leo  XIII. 

Of  all  places  on  earth,  Rome  is  the  city  of  contrasts 
and  paradox.  Nowhere  else  can  we  see  memorials  of 
such  pomp  alongside  of  such  squalor.  The  insolence  of 
wealth  jostles  disease,  filth,  and  penury.  Devoutness, 
which  holds  whole  continents  spell-bound,  goes  hand  in 
hand  with  hypocrisy  and  corruption.  What  sublime 
piety,  what  tender  charity,  what  ideal  purity,  what 
bigotry,  what  brutality,  what  grossness  !  Over  this  con- 
vent garden  pensive  mysticism  has  thrown  a  halo  of 
saintliness :  it  is  overshadowed  by  a  palace  which  has 
one  black  record  of  arrogance.  There,  some  tomb 
breathes  the  very  soul  of  spiritual  art ;  beside  it  stands 
another  which  is  a  typical  monument  of  ostentation. 
Here  is  a  fragment  worthy  of  Praxiteles,  buried  under 
costly  masses  of  rococo  inanity.  Works  that  testify  to 
stupendous  concentration  of  power  stand  in  a  chaos 
which  testifies  to  nothing  but  savagery  and  ruin.  The 
very  demon  of  destruction  seems  to  have  run  riot  over 
the  spot  that  the  very  genius  of  beauty  has  chosen  for 
his  home. 


28O  THE    CITY    IN    HISTORY 

The  eternal  lesson  of  Rome  is  the  war  which  each 
phase  of  human  civilisation,  each  type  of  art,  of  manners, 
of  religion,  has  waged  against  its  immediate  prede- 
cessor : — the  fury  with  which  it  sought  to  blot  out  its 
very  record.  When  Rome  became  Greek  in  thought, 
art,  -and  habits,  it  destroyed  almost  every  vestige  of  the 
old  Italian  civilisation  which  was  the  source  of  its  own 
strength  ;  and  recent  excavations  alone  have  unearthed 
the  massive  walls,  the  pottery,  bronze  and  gold  work 
of  the  ages  before  Rome  was,  and  also  of  the  ages  of 
Servius,  Camillus,  and  Cincinnatus.  Imperial  Rome 
pillaged  Greece,  Asia,  Africa,  and  heaped  up  between 
the  Quirinal  and  the  Vatican  priceless  treasures  of  an 
art  which  it  only  understood  well  enough  to  covet  and 
to  rob.  When  the  Gospel  triumphed  over  Imperial 
Rome,  it  treated  the  palaces  of  the  Caesars  as  dens  of 
infamy,  and  their  monuments  as  blasphemous  idols  and 
offences  to  God.  When  the  Anti-Christian  Revival  was 
in  all  the  heyday  of  its  immoral  rage  after  beauty,  it 
treated  the  Catholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  barbar- 
ous superstition.  Popes  and  cardinals  destroyed  more 
immortal  works  of  beauty  than  the  worst  scourges  of 
God  ;  and  the  most  terrible  Goths  and  Vandals  that 
the  stones  of  Rome  ever  knew  were  sceptical  priests 
and  learned  virtuosi.  Nay,  in  twenty  years  the  reformers 
of  the  Italian  kingdom  have  wrought  greater  havoc  in 
the  aspect  of  Papal  Rome  than,  in  the  four  centuries 
since  Julius  II.,  popes  and  cardinals  ever  wrought  on 
Classical  and  Mediaeval  Rome. 

At  every  turn  we  come  on  some  new  crime  against 
humanity  done  by  fanaticism  or  greed.  Into  Imperial 
Rome  there  was  swept,  as  into  the  museum  of  the  world, 
the  marbles,  the  statues,  the  bronzes,  the  ivories,  the 
paintings  and  carvings,  the  precious  works  of  human 


ROME    REVISITED  28 1 

genius  for  some  six  or  seven  centuries — everything  of 
rarity  and  loveliness  that  could  be  found  between  Cadiz 
and  the  Black  Sea.  There  were  tens  of  thousands  of 
statues  in  Greek  marble,  and  as  many  in  bronze  ;  there 
were  marble  columns,  monoliths,  friezes,  reliefs,  obelisks, 
colossi,  fountains.  Halls,  porticoes,  temples,  theatres, 
baths,  were  crowded  with  the  spoils  of  the  world,  rich 
enough  to  furnish  forth  ten  such  cities  as  London,  Paris, 
or  New  York.  It  is  all  gone.  There  are  but  a  few 
fragments  now  that  chance  has  spared.  Twenty  sieges, 
stormings,  pillages,  a  hundred  conflagrations,  the  bar- 
barous greed  of  the  invading  hordes,  the  barbarous 
fanaticism  of  the  first  Christians,  the  incessant  wars, 
revolutions,  riots,  and  faction  fights  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  brutal  greediness  of  popes,  cardinals,  their  nephews 
and  their  favourites — worst  of  all,  perhaps,  modern  in- 
dustrial iconoclasm — have  swept  away  all  but  a  few 
chance  fragments. 

In  the  time  of  Pliny  there  must  have  been  still  extant 
thousands  of  works  of  the  purest  Greek  art  of  the  great 
age.  There  is  now  not  one  surviving  intact  in  the  whole 
world  ;  and  there  are  but  two — the  Hermes  of  Olympia 
and  the  Aphrodite  of  Melos — of  which  even  fragments 
remain  in  sufficient  preservation  to  enable  us  to  judge 
them.  Every  other  work  of  the  greatest  age  is  either, 
like  the  Parthenon  relics,  a  mere  ruin,  or  is  known  to  us 
only  by  a  later  imitation.  Of  the  bronzes  not  a  single 
complete  specimen  of  the  great  age  survives.  And  this 
loss  is  irreparable.  Even  if  such  genius  of  art  were 
ever  to  return  to  this  earth  again,  it  is  certain  that  the 
same  passion  for  physical  beauty,  the  same  habit  of 
displaying  the  form,  can  never  again  be  universal  with 
any  civilised  people.  And  thus  by  the  wanton  destruc- 
tiveness  of  successive  ages,  one  of  the  most  original 


282  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

types  of  human  genius  has  become  extinct  on  this 
earth,  even  as  the  mastodon  or  the  dodo  are  extinct 

But  masterpieces  of  marble  and  bronze  were  dross  in 
comparison  with  the  masterpieces  of  the  human  soul,  of 
intellect,  purity,  and  love,  that  have  been  mangled  on 
this  same  spot  and  in  sight  of  these  supreme  works  of 
genius.  The  Christian  pilgrim  from  some  Irish  or 
American  monastery,  from  Santiago  in  Chile,  from 
Armenia  or  Warsaw — the  Catholic  missionary  on  his 
way  to  die  in  China,  or  Polynesia,  or  Uganda — pro- 
strates himself  in  the  dust  where  Paul  was  beheaded 
and  Peter  crucified,  where  Gregory  and  Augustine 
prayed,  and  in  the  Colosseum  he  sees  nothing  but  a 
monstrous  black  ruin  ;  but  he  kneels  in  the  arena  where 
the  blood  of  martyrs  was  poured  forth  like  water,  which 
has  witnessed  such  heroic  deaths,  such  revolting  crimes. 
Each  zealot — Catholic,  Protestant,  or  sceptic — remem- 
bers only  his  own  martyrs.  Romans  massacred  Gaul 
and  Goth ;  Polytheists  martyred  Christians ;  Papal 
creatures  tortured  Republicans,  Protestants,  and  Re- 
formers ;  emperors'  men  slew  popes'  men,  and  popes' 
men  slew  the  emperors'  men  ;  Colonnas  and  Orsinis, 
Borgias  and  Cencis,  Borgheses  and  Barberinis  have 
poured  out  blood  upon  blood,  and  piled  up  crime  on 
crime,  till  every  stone  records  some  inhuman  act,  and 
witnesses  also  to  courage  and  faith  as  memorable  and 
quite  as  human. 

The  fanaticism  of  these  same  priests  and  missionaries 
has  its  own  reaction.  As  the  Catholic  pilgrim  to-day 
prostrates  himself  on  the  spot  where  for  eighteen 
centuries  Christian  pilgrims  from  all  parts  of  the  earth 
have  prostrated  themselves,  the  followers  of  Garibaldi 
and  Mazzini  glare  on  them  with  hatred  and  contempt ; 
so  that,  but  for  soldiers  and  police,  no  priest  in  his 


ROME   REVISITED  283 

robes  would  be  safe  in  Rome.  The  death-struggle 
between  Papacy  and  Free  Thought  was  never  more 
acute.  Hundreds  of  churches  are  bare,  deserted,  with- 
out the  semblance  of  a  congregation.  Of  late  years, 
one  may  visit  famous  churches,  known  throughout  the 
Catholic  world,  and  find  one's  self,  for  hours  together, 
absolutely  alone ;  and  sometimes  we  may  notice  how 
they  serve  as  the  resort  of  a  pair  of  lovers,  who  choose 
the  church  as  a  place  to  meet  undisturbed  in  perfect 
solitude.  Vast  monasteries,  which  for  centuries  have 
peopled  Christendom  with  priests  and  teachers,  are 
now  empty,  or  converted  to  secular  uses.  The  Pope 
is  '  the  prisoner  of  the  Vatican,'  and  the  Papal  world 
has  withdrawn  from  public  view. 

Nowhere  else  in  the  world  are  we  brought  so  close 
face  to  face  with  the  great  battles  of  religion  and 
politics,  and  with  the  destruction  wrought  by  successive 
phases  of  human  civilisation.  This  destruction  is  more 
visible  in  Rome,  because  fragments  remain  to  witness 
to  each  phase ;  but  the  destruction  is  not  so  great  as 
elsewhere,  where  the  very  ruins  have  been  destroyed. 
At  Paris,  Lyons,  London,  York,  Cologne,  and  Milan, 
the  Roman  city  has  been  all  but  obliterated,  and  the 
mediaeval  city  also,  and  the  Renascence  city  after  that; 
so  that,  for  the  most  part,  in  all  these  ancient  centres 
of  successive  civilisations,  we  see  little  to-day  but  the 
monotony  of  modern  convenience,  and  the  triumphs  of 
the  speculative  builder.  But  at  Rome  enough  remains 
to  remind  us  of  the  unbroken  roll  of  some  three  thousand 
years. 

At  Rome  we  see  the  wreckage.  At  Paris  and  London 
it  has  been  covered  fathoms  deep  by  the  rising  tide. 
They  are  finding  now  the  tombs,  arms,  ornaments, 
and  structures  of  the  primitive  races  who  dwelt  on  the 


284  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

Seven  Hills  before  history  was.  We  may  now  see  the 
walls  which  rose  when  the  history  of  Rome  began,  the 
fortress  of  the  early  kings,  and  their  vast  subterranean 
works.  We  can  still  stand  on  the  spot  where  Horatius 
defended  the  bridge,  and  where  Virginius  slew  his 
daughter.  We  still  see  the  tombs  and  temples,  the 
treasure-house  of  the  Republic.  We  see  the  might 
and  glory  of  Rome  when  she  was  the  mistress  of  the 
world  and  the  centre  of  the  world.  We  see  the  walls 
which  long  defied  the  barbarians  of  the  North  ;  we  see 
the  tombs  of  the  Christian  martyrs,  and  trace  the  foot- 
steps of  the  great  Apostles  ;  we  see  the  rise,  the  growth, 
the  culmination  and  the  death-struggles  of  the  Catholic 
Papacy.  We  see  the  Middle  Ages  piled  up  on  the 
ruins  of  the  ancient  world,  and  the  modern  world  piled 
on  the  ruins  of  the  mediaeval  world.  At  Rome  we  can 
see  in  ruins,  fragments,  or,  it  may  be,  merely  in  certain 
sites,  spots,  and  subterranean  vaults,  that  revolving 
picture  of  history,  which  elsewhere  our.  modern  life 
has  blotted  out  from  our  view. 

Take  the  Pantheon — in  some  ways  the  central,  the 
most  ancient,  the  most  historic  building  in  the  world. 
For  more  than  1900  years  it  has  been  a  temple — first 
of  the  gods  of  the  old  world,  and  since  of  the  Christian 
God.  It  is  the  only  great  extant  building  of  which 
that  can  now  be  said.  It  is  certainly  the  oldest  build- 
ing in  continuous  use  on  earth,  for  it  was  a  temple  of 
the  pagan  deities  one  hundred  years  before  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Gospel  at  Rome ;  dedicated  by  the  minister 
and  son-in-law  of  Augustus  in  the  first  splendour  of  the 
Empire ;  converted  after  six  centuries  into  a  Christian 
church  and  burial-place,  when  it  was  filled  with  the 
bones  of  the  martyrs  removed  from  the  catacombs. 
The  festival  of  All  Saints  thereupon  instituted  is  the 


ROME   REVISITED  285 

one  Christian  festival  which  modern  scepticism  concurs 
in  honouring.  In  the  Revival,  the  Pantheon  became 
the  type  of  all  the  domed  buildings  of  Europe — first 
as  the  parent  of  the  dome  of  Florence,  thence  of  the 
dome  of  St.  Peter's,  through  St.  Peter's  of  our  own  St. 
Paul's,  and  so  the  parent  of  all  the  spherical  domes  of 
the  Old  and  the  New  World.  As  such  a  type,  it  was 
the  especial  study  of  the  humanist  artists  of  the 
Revival,  and  so  perhaps  it  was  chosen  for  the  tomb 
of  Raphael.  There,  amidst  a  company  of  painters, 
scholars,  and  artists,  his  sacred  ashes  lie  in  perfect 
preservation ;  and  but  lately  he  has  been  joined  in 
death  by  the  first  king  of  United  Italy,  who  lies  in 
a  noble  monument,  round  which  Catholic  and  Liberals 
are  still  glaring  at  each  other  in  hate.  Plundered  by 
Christian  emperors,  plundered  by  popes  and  cardinals, 
the  Pantheon  still  remains,  to  my  eyes,  the  most  im- 
pressive, original,  and  most  perfect  building  extant. 

Imagine  the  Pantheon  in  its  glory,  before  it  was 
stripped  of  its  gold,  its  bronze,  marbles,  and  statues 
by  emperors  and  popes.  Conceive  that  vast,  solid 
dome,  still  the  largest  span  in  the  world — nearly  one 
half  more  than  the  diameter  of  St.  Paul's — the  first 
great  dome  ever  raised  by  man,  the  grand  invention 
of  Romans,  of  which  the  Greeks  in  all  their  art  never 
dreamed.  The  dome,  with  the  round  arch  out  of  which 
it  sprang,  is  the  most  fertile  conception  in  the  whole 
history  of  building.  The  Pantheon  became  the  parent 
of  all  subsequent  domes,  and  so  of  that  of  The  Holy 
Wisdom  at  Constantinople,  which  was  the  parent  of 
the  Byzantine  oblate  domes  of  Europe  and  of  Asia. 

We  can  recall  to  the  mind's  eye  its  roof  of  solid 
concrete,  moulded  and  plated  within,  and  covered 
with  gilt  bronze  plates  without ;  with  its  statues,  the 


286  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

enormous  columns  of  rare  marbles  and  granite,  its 
upper  story  of  porphyry  and  serpentine,  lit  only  by 
one  great  circle  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  through  which 
the  open  sky  by  day  and  the  stars  by  night  look  down 
on  the  marble  pavement.  To  this  wonderful  building, 
the  one  relic  of  the  ancient  world  in  its  entirety,  the 
builders  of  all  after  ages  turned.  For  five  centuries 
the  Roman  world  turned  to  it ;  till  out  of  it  arose  a  new- 
art  in  Constantinople.  Then  in  the  fifteenth  century 
at  the  Revival  the  humanist  artists  turned  again  to 
this  same  great  work  ;  it  gave  rise  first  to  the  dome 
of  Florence,  and  then  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  later, 
to  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's ;  from  St.  Peter's  the  dome 
spread  over  the  world — the  Pantheon  and  the  Invalides 
at  Paris,  St.  Paul's  in  London,  the  Capitol  at  Washington, 
the  Isaac  Church  at  St.  Petersburg  are  mere  imitations 
of  St.  Peter's.  And  thus  from  the  Pantheon  has  sprung 
the  architecture  which  from  Chile  to  Chicago,  from  the 
British  Islands  to  the  Turkish  Empire,  from  St.  Peters- 
burg to  Sicily,  is  seen  in  a  thousand  varieties,  and  in 
ten  thousand  examples. 

But  it  is  not  the  Pantheon,  nor  indeed  any  ancient 
temple,  which  served  as  the  original  type  for  the  Gothic 
churches  of  Europe  down  to  the  ascendency  of  the 
Petrine  type  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Nothing  in  the  history  of  architecture  is  better  estab- 
lished than  the  evolution  of  the  Gothic  Cathedral  out 
of  the  civil  basilicas  of  the  ancient  world.  The  whole 
course  of  that  evolution  can  be  traced  step  by  step  at 
Rome,  in  Santa  Maria  Maggiore,  St.  Paul's  without 
the  walls,  St.  John  Lateran,  St.  Clement's,  St.  Agnes', 
St.  Lawrence,  and  the  older  churches  of  the  basilican 
type.  Thus  with  the  basilicas,  extant,  converted,  or 
recently  destroyed,  as  the  matrix  of  the  Gothic  churches 


ROME   REVISITED  287 

from  the  fifth  to  the  fifteenth  centuries,  and  the  Pantheon 
as  the  matrix  of  the  neo-classical  churches  from  the 
fifteenth  to  the  nineteenth  century,  we  feel  ourselves 
at  Rome  in  the  head-waters  from  which  we  can  trace 
the  flow  of  all  modern  architecture. 

If  the  Pantheon  be  historically  the  central  building 
in  Rome,  it  is  by  no  means  amongst  the  oldest  monu- 
ments. Nor  are  the  walls  of  Roma  quadrata,  nor  the 
first  structures  of  the  Palatine.  The  Egyptian  obelisks 
carry  us  back  to  a  time  almost  as  remote  from  the 
Pantheon  as  the  Pantheon  is  from  us.  The  oldest, 
perhaps,  date  from  the  Pharaohs  who  built  the  Pyramids, 
and  they  were  made  to  adorn  the  temple  of  the  Sun 
on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  thence  were  brought  by  the 
first  Caesars  to  adorn  a  circus,  or  to  give  majesty  to 
a  mausoleum,  then  thrown  down  and  cast  aside  in 
Christian  ages  as  monuments  of  heathendom  and 
savage  shows.  Again  they  were  restored  in  the  classical 
revival  after  a  thousand  years  of  neglect,  and  set  up 
to  witness  to  the  pride  of  popes  and  adorn  the  capital 
of  Christendom. 

What  an  epitome  of  human  history  in  those  vast 
monoliths,  the  largest  of  which  is  thirty-six  feet  higher 
than  Cleopatra's  needle  on  the  Thames,  and  is  more 
than  three  times  it  weight ;  for  a  thousand  years  wit- 
nessing the  processions  of  Egyptian  festivals,  then  for 
some  centuries  witnesses  of  the  spectacles  and  luxury 
of  the  Imperial  city,  then  for  a  thousand  years  cast 
down  into  the  dust,  but  too  vast  to  be  destroyed,  and 
then  set  up  again,  with  the  blessings  of  popes  and  the 
ceremonies  of  the  Church,  crowned  with  the  symbol  of 
the  Cross,  to  witness  to  the  grandeur  of  the  successor 
of  St.  Peter.  They  have  looked  down — these  eternal 
stones — on  Moses  and  Aaron,  on  Pharaohs  and  Greeks 


288  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

and  Persians,  on  Alexander  and  Julius,  on  Peter  and 
Paul,  on  Charlemagne  and  Dante,  on  Michael  Angelo 
and  Raphael.  These  stones  were  venerable  objects 
before  history  began  ;  they  have  been  objects  of  wonder 
to  the  three  great  religions,  three  races,  and  three  epochs 
of  civilisation. 

One  can  forgive  destructive  municipalism  much  for 
at  last  rescuing  from  ignoble  uses  the  burial-places  of 
the  Caesars.  There  are  no  edifices  in  Rome  more 
interesting  to  the  historian  than  those  vast  mausolea 
— the  grandest  and  most  imposing  tombs  that  exist 
— the  mausoleum  of  Augustus,  that  of  Hadrian,  of 
Caecilia  Metella,  the  Pyramid  of  Cestius.  That  of 
Augustus,  for  a  hundred  years  the  burial-place  of  the 
Caesars  and  their  families,  then  a  castle  of  the  Colonnas, 
the  scene  of  endless  civil  wars,  afterwards  a  common 
theatre  for  open-air  plays,  is  now  at  last  recovered,  to 
be  preserved  as  a  monument  of  antiquity.  The  yet 
vaster  mausoleum  of  Hadrian,  for  another  hundred 
years  the  burial-place  of  the  later  Caesars,  a  huge  tower 
of  240  feet  in  diameter,  and  rising  to  160  feet  in  height ; 
once  a  dazzling  mass  of  statuary,  marble,  columns, 
bronze  and  gilding ;  then  a  fortress  that  bore  the  brunt 
of  countless  sieges,  the  citadel  of  the  popes,  their  prison- 
house,  their  refuge,  and  their  treasure-house,  adorned 
with  frescoes  by  pupils  of  Raphael,  and  famous  in  the 
anecdotes  of  Cellini,  with  cells,  halls,  and  chambers 
crowded  with  anecdotes :  at  last  a  barrack  of  the  Pope 
and  then  of  the  King  of  Italy. 

This  too,  as  one  of  the  buildings  of  antiquity  which 
has  been  in  use  continuously  since  the  Empire,  wit- 
nesses at  once  to  the  grandeur  of  the  Caesars,  to  the 
tempest-tossed  history  of  Rome  in  her  Decline  and 
Fall,  to  the  robber  bands  of  the  Middle  Ages,  to  the 


ROME   REVISITED  289 

infamies  of  the  Papacy  of  the  tenth  century  and  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  history  of  Rome  from 
Theodoric  to  Victor  Emmanuel,  the  sieges,  the  wars 
of  the  popes,  the  whole  story  of  their  temporal  power, 
seem  to  group  round  the  Castle  of  the  Angel  who 
stayed  the  Pestilence  at  the  prayers  of  Saint  Gregory. 
Within  it  was  the  porphyry  sarcophagus  which  once 
held  the  dust  of  Hadrian.  Strange  is  the  story  of  that 
stately  coffin.  After  a  thousand  years  it  was  carried 
off  to  St.  Peter's  by  Innocent  II.  for  his  own  body, 
and  it  was  burnt  in  a  conflagration  two  centuries  later. 
The  porphyry  lid  of  it  was  used  in  the  tenth  century 
for  the  coffin  of  the  Emperor  Otho  II.  Seven  centuries 
later  his  ashes  were  ejected  by  a  pope,  and  it  was  con- 
verted into  the  baptismal  font  of  St.  Peter's,  where  it 
now  rests.  What  an  epitome  of  the  history  of  Rome ! 
This  precious  marble  of  the  East,  made  to  cover  the 
dust  of  the  Roman  master  of  the  world  in  the  grandest 
tomb  of  Europe,  desecrated  and  cast  aside  by  bar- 
barous invaders,  one  half  of  it  was  used  as  his  coffin 
by  the  Emperor  the  successor  of  Charlemagne,  the 
other  is  adopted  for  his  own  coffin  by  the  Pope,  the 
friend  and  protege  of  St.  Bernard.  This  half  is  destroyed 
by  fire ;  the  other  half  is  still  the  font  in  the  central 
Church  of  Christendom.  The  Empire  of  the  Caesars, 
the  Empire  of  Charlemagne,  the  mediaeval  Papacy, 
the  modern  Papacy,  all  are  recorded  in  that  historic 
marble. 

In  spite  of  disfigurement,  the  recent  '  improvements ' 
have  rather  accentuated  that  peculiar  quality  of  the 
monuments  of  Rome,  that  they  thus  witness  to  the 
successive  revolutions  in  human  destiny.  The  anti- 
quarian who  excavates  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  the 
Seine,  or  the  Mississippi,  the  geologist  who  explores  in 

T 


THE   CITY    IX    IlI.sTORY 

the  strata  of  some  estuary,  comes  upon  layer  after  layer 
of  successive  ages,  the  remains  of  ^historic  ages,  then  of 
pre-historic  ages,  of  the  bronze  age,  of  the  bone  im- 
plements, of  the  flint  implements,  the  neolithic,  and  the 
palaeolithic  age,  until  he  comes  to  the  glacial  epoch,  and 
so  forth.  That  is  the  character  of  the  Roman  remains. 
With  us  Stonehenge  records  the  Druids  and  nothing 
else,  the  White  Tower  records  the  Norman  Kings,  the 
Abbey  the  Plantagenets,  St.  Paul's  the  Stuarts,  and  no 
more.  But  at  Rome  each  monument  bears  visible 
marks  of  four,  five,  or  six  successive  ages  over  some 
two  thousand  years  or  a  yet  longer  span. 

St.  Peter  has  displaced  Trajan  on  his  column,  as  St. 
Paul  has  superseded  Antoninus.  The  Mamertine  prison 
was  first  perhaps  an  Etruscan  waterwork  of  the  early 
kings,  then  the  state  prison  of  the  Republic,  the  scene 
of  the  execution  of  Jugurtha,  and  the  conspirators  of 
Catiline,  of  Vercingetorix,  and  many  another  captive 
chief,  of  Sejanus  ;  then  it  was  believed  to  be  the  prison 
of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter,  from  whence  their  last  epistles 
were  written,  and  since  then  it  has  become  for  the 
Catholic  world  a  centre  of  pilgrimage,  adoration,  and 
miracle.  So  the  churches  round  the  Forum  are  partly 
formed  of  Roman  temples  and  basilicas,  one  of  them 
being  the  seat  of  the  Senate.  So  the  Colosseum  was 
built  by  Titus  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem,  largely  by 
captive  Jews  ;  for  three  centuries  it  continued  the  scene 
of  the  most  amazing  and  wonderful  spectacles  the  world 
ever  saw ;  then  it  was  a  fortress  of  the  feudal  barons, 
the  refuge  or  the  terror  of  popes,  then  the  quarry  from 
which  cardinals  and  families  of  popes  built  their  palaces, 
then  a  deserted  ruin,  then  a  factory,  next  a  sacred  place 
of  pilgrimage,  of  preaching,  and  of  reverential  worship, 
and  now  again  secularised  into  a  mere  antiquarian 


ROME   REVISITED  29 1 

museum,  from  which  Nature  and  God  have  been  driven 
as  with  a  pitchfork.  So,  too,  out  of  one  vast  hall  in  the 
Baths  of  Diocletian,  Michael  Angelo  constructed  for  a 
pope  a  stately  modern  church.  The  columns,  the  marble 
floors,  the  sarcophagi,  the  fonts,  and  the  pulpits  in  the 
older  churches  have  each  a  long  and  varied  history.  A 
column  of  Grecian  marble  has  been  oddly  inscribed, 
'  From  the  bed-chamber  of  the  Caesars.'  A  sculptured 
coffin  first  held  a  Roman  senator,  was  next  converted  to 
the  use  of  a  martyred  saint,  was  then  cast  aside  as  a 
worthless  bit  of  stone  on  a  heap  of  rubbish,  and  at 
length  appropriated  by  an  aesthetic  churchman  for  his 
own  pompous  monument. 

There  is  one  feature  of  Rome  which  even  the  rage  of 
'  improvement'  has  spared  as  yet — the  feature  which  of 
all  others  is  the  most  suggestive  to  the  historical  mind 
— the  ancient  city  walls :  the  whole  series  of  walls,  with 
their  towers,  gates,  ramparts,  and  barbicans,  with  the 
twelve  miles  of  circuit,  the  fragments  of  the  early  kings, 
the  walls  of  Romulus  and  of  Servius,  the  walls  of 
Aurelian  and  of  Belisarius  and  Theodoric,  the  walls  of 
Pope  Leo,  of  Pope  Sixtus,  of  Urban,  of  Pio  Nono. 
What  a  vast  procession  of  events  has  passed  in  the 
sixteen  centuries  since  Aurelian  made  the  circuit  that 
we  see !  As  we  stand  on  those  ramparts  in  the  Pincian 
or  in  the  Medici  garden,  or  beside  the  Lateran  Terrace, 
or  near  the  grave  of  Shelley,  what  visions  we  may  still 
recall — what  victorious  armies  from  east  and  west,  north 
and  south,  coming  home  in  triumph  under  Diocletian 
and  Constantine,  Julian  and  Theodosius,  with  the  eagles 
glancing  in  the  sun,  and  the  legionaries  tramping  on  in 
serried  ranks ;  what  hordes  of  northern  and  southern 
invaders,  Vandals,  Goths,  Lombards,  Franks,  Normans, 
and  Saracens,  the  ever  victorious  armies  of  Charles  the 


THE    CITY    IN    HISTORY 

Great,  of  the  Othos,  of  the  Norman  Guiscard  ;  what 
battles  ;  what  sackings  and  conflagrations  ;  or  again, 
what  long  processions  of  pilgrims  from  all  parts  of  the 
earth  ;  what  bands  of  monks  led  by  Francis,  Dominic, 
Loyola,  and  Xavier ;  what  companies  of  men-at-arms 
led  by  Colonnas,  Orsinis,  Frangipanis,  Contis,  and 
Crescentii ;  and  then  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  what  clash  of  arms,  what  pompous  ceremonies, 
what  historic  meetings,  down  to  the  time  of  Napoleon 
and  Garibaldi,  and  Pio  Nono  and  Victor  Emmanuel, 
and  the  latest  breach  of  all,  through  which  the  Italian 
kingdom  entered  and  displaced  the  Pope.  These  walls 
and  gates,  themselves  of  all  ages,  bear  stamped  on 
them  the  history  of  Europe  during  sixteen  centuries. 
Few  edifices  of  man's  hand  on  this  earth  have  a  record 
so  great,  and  of  such  central  interest. 

Of  the  Catholic  memorials  of  Rome,  though  the 
Church  has  almost  disappeared  from  sight,  nothing  is 
destroyed  and  little  is  changed.  To  the  Protestant 
tourist,  with  his  Murray  and  his  Baedeker,  now  that  the 
public  papal  ceremonies  have  practically  ceased,  this 
Catholic  world  is  for  the  most  part  a  blank.  He  passes 
from  the  Caesars  to  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo, 
Bernini  and  Guido,  from  the  Forum  to  St.  Peter's  ac- 
cording to  his  taste,  without  a  thought  of  the  vast 
world  of  history,  of  legend,  of  poetry,  of  art,  of  religion, 
that  fills  up  the  twelve  centuries  between  the  days  of 
Constantine  and  the  days  of  Leo  X.  The  British 
tourist  is  but  one  out  of  many.  To  the  tens  of 
thousands  of  Catholic  pilgrims  who  visit  Rome  from 
all  parts  of  the  world,  this  city  of  St.  Peter  is  all  in 
all ;  ruins  and  pictures  to  them  are  worldly  trifles.  To 
them  Christian  Rome  is  everything,  and  heathen  Rome 
and  modern  Rome  are  less  than  nothing.  And  to  the 


ROME   REVISITED  293 

impartial  mind  of  history,  this  Christian  Rome  is  a  very 
solid  third  part — nay,  perhaps,  a  real  half  of  Rome — 
historic  Rome  in  its  entirety. 

But  it  is  a  thorny  topic  to  the  mere  historian,  is  this 
Christian  Rome ;  for  every  corner  of  its  story  is  en- 
crusted with  vague  legend,  unsupported  guesses,  usually 
passing  into  palpable  imposture.  Miracle,  tradition, 
superstition,  and  fraud  have  got  inextricably  woven 
into  the  texture  of  each  record.  As  the  tourist  mocks 
at  the  footprints  of  the  Apostles  in  the  Mamertine  rock, 
at  the  miraculous  Bambino  of  Ara  Cceli ;  so  the  learned 
antiquary  shakes  his  head  at  the  sacred  image  of  St. 
Peter,  and  at  the  tomb  and  cell  of  St.  Cecilia.  But 
the  scepticism  of  tourist  and  antiquarian  is  somewhat 
overdone.  There  is  a  legendary,  perhaps  a  fraudulent, 
element  in  many  of  the  lives  and  martyrdoms,  nay,  in 
most  of  them.  Strict  historical  criticism  can  accept  no 
one  in  its  entirety.  But  there  is  a  vast  substructure  of 
fact,  most  difficult  to  disentangle,  and  impossible  now 
to  prove.  For  my  part,  I  would  as  soon  believe  that 
nothing  of  the  Golden  House  of  Nero  still  exists  under 
the  Baths  of  Titus,  that  no  fragment  of  Roma  quadrata 
remains  embedded  in  the  palaces  of  the  Caesars,  as  I 
would  believe  that  the  legends  of  St.  Clement  and  St. 
Lawrence,  of  Cecilia  and  Agnes,  of  Martina  and  Bibiana, 
were  mere  poetic  inventions  with  no  basis  of  fact.  It 
is  for  the  historical  mind  a  hopeless  task  to  analyse  this 
element  of  fact ;  and  where  superstition  has  piled  up 
fables,  and  scepticism  retorts  with  wholesale  ridicule, 
a  lifetime  would  hardly  suffice  to  separate  truth  and 
fiction. 

Let  us,  then,  be  content  to  grope  in  the  labyrinthine 
passages  and  silent  vaults  of  the  catacombs,  to  view  the 
mouldering  bones  in  their  narrow  cribs,  the  lamps,  and 


294  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

circlets,  and  fragments  of  pottery  and  metal,  the  rude 
and  smoky  frescoes,  the  inscriptions,  the  epitaphs,  the 
emblems  of  the  faith  ;  let  us  descend  into  the  lower 
churches  of  St.  Clement  and  St.  Agnes  and  St.  Lawrence, 
St.  Cosmas  and  St.  Martina ;  let  us  visit  the  baptistry 
and  cloisters  of  the  Lateran,  even  the  Scala  Santa  and 
the  crypt  of  St.  Peter's  ;  let  us  ponder  over  S.  Gregorio 
and  its  remains  of  the  great  Gregory,  S.  Sabina,  with  its 
record  of  Dominic  and  Aquinas  ;  let  us  meditate  in  the 
convent  gardens  of  the  Esquiline  and  the  Aventine,  and 
feel  that  we  are  truly  in  touch  with  scenes  historically 
consecrated  by  some  of  the  greatest  souls  who  have 
ever  dignified  humanity,  with  spots  hallowed  as  some  of 
the  turning  points  in  human  civilisation,  and  certainly 
consecrated  by  the  tears  and  prayers  of  believers  during 
eighteen  centuries.  We  neither  surrender  our  critical 
judgment  nor  give  way  to  a  ribald  scepticism.  What 
parts  of  this  mighty  and  pathetic  pageantry  of  Christian 
legend  are  real,  and  what  parts  are  pious  fiction  or 
unholy  fraud,  we  cannot  tell.  Let  us  forbear  to  probe 
further  where  the  task  is  vain.  But  this  we  know  :  that 
in  that  enormous  mass  of  legend,  relic,  ceremonial, 
tradition  and  art,  there  is  a  basis  of  profound  reality, 
and  a  world  of  imagery,  emotion,  sacrifice,  such  as 
man's  brain  and  heart  have  never  surpassed. 

It  is  a  melancholy  reflection  how  often  our  critical 
and  sceptical  habits  make  us  blind  to  the  true  historic 
significance  of  such  a  monument  as  St.  Peter's.  The 
tourist  and  the  student  of  art  decry  its  rococo  saints 
and  extravagant  pomposity,  the  waste  of  power,  the 
manifest  hollowness  of  its  peculiar  relics.  Put  aside 
antiquarian  and  aesthetic  criticism,  and  still  a  marvellous 
record  remains.  Grant  that  the  Cathedra  Petri,  the 
miraculous  bronze  image  and  the  bones  of  the  apostle, 


ROME  REVISITED  295 

the  column  at  which  Christ  was  scourged,  are  all  pious 
fictions,  there  remains  still  in  the  very  site,  in  the  tombs 
of  the  early  Leos,  of  Matilda,  the  great  countess,  in  the 
antique  Madonnas,  in  the  font,  in  the  crypt  and  sub- 
terranean vaults,  in  the  sacristy  and  the  cemetery  of 
Constantine,  in  the  tomb  of  Junius  Bassus,  and  in  the 
Navicella  of  Giotto,  above  all,  in  the  long  annals  of  that 
venerated  spot  from  the  circus  of  Nero  down  to  its  final 
consecration  by  Urban  VIII.,  enough  to  fill  the  thirteen 
centuries  between  Constantine  and  the  Borgheses. 

To  visit  Rome — which  even  in  the  last  generation 
had  on  most  minds  a  sobering  effect,  as  a  visit  to  a 
cemetery  must  have,  however  beautiful  be  the  spot  where 
the  departed  sleep — has  grown  to  be  of  mournful  in- 
terest to  those  who  remember  it  of  old.  There  is  to 
them  a  new  meaning  in  the  peasant's  song,  '  Roma, 
Roma,  non  e  piu  com'  era  prima ! '  We  can  see  no 
longer  the  Salvator  Rosa  ruins  and  rocks,  the  Piranesi 
colonnades  and  arches,  the  quaint  old  Papal  pageantry, 
and  the  pensive  landscape  from  garden  and  terrace. 
Bits  of  it  remain  here  and  there  amidst  acres  of  building 
speculations  and  American  caravanserais.  But  for  the 
mere  student  of  antiquity  there  is  ample  compensation. 
And  it  is  perhaps  the  truth  that  the  deepest  interest  of 
Rome  still  is  not  in  its  art,  in  its  Vatican  galleries,  Sistine 
frescoes,  or  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  not  in  its  churches, 
cloisters,  relics,  and  tombs,  but  in  its  record  of  the 
ancient  world.  Rome  never  was  a  centre  of  art  even 
in  the  days  of  Raphael,  she  never  was  a  centre  of 
Christianity  even  in  the  twelfth  and  the  thirteenth 
century,  as  she  was  a  centre  of  civilisation  in  the  ages 
of  Julius,  Augustus,  Vespasian,  and  Trajan. 

We  may  still  stand  on  the  tower  of  the  Capitol  and 
survey  that  glorious  panorama  bounded  by  Tuscan, 


296  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

Sabine,  and  Alban  hills,  and  dream  what  that  scene 
was  some  seventeen  or  eighteen  hundred  years  ago. 
The  Forum  below  was  one  radiant  avenue  of  temples, 
triumphal  arches,  triumphal  columns,  colossal  statues, 
monuments,  and  votive  shrines  —  the  senate-house, 
the  rostra,  the  sacred  way  on  one  side — the  circular 
temple  of  Vesta,  the  temple  of  Castor  and  the  basilica 
of  Julius  on  the  other  ;  above,  on  the  right,  the  temple 
of  Jove,  on  the  left  that  of  Juno,  and  the  towering 
palaces  of  the  Palatine  and  the  Circus  Maximus 
beyond  the  valley.  Far  as  the  eye  can  reach  would 
be  vast  theatres,  enormous  baths,  colossal  sepulchres, 
obelisks,  columns,  fountains,  equestrian  statues  in  marble 
or  in  bronze.  The  walls  of  these  sumptuous  edifices 
are  all  of  dazzling  brilliance  in  Oriental  marbles,  bright 
with  mosaic  and  with  frescoes,  and  their  roofs  are 
covered  with  plates  of  hammered  gold.  In  the  far 
distance,  across  terraces  and  gardens  shady  with  the 
dark  foliage  of  cypress  and  stone  pine,  might  be  seen 
the  aqueducts  which  bring  from  the  mountains  whole 
rivers  into  the  city,  to  fill  its  thousand  baths  and  its 
hundred  fountains.  And  between  the  aqueducts  and 
the  porticoes,  far  as  the  eye  can  reach  to  the  hills 
beyond,  villas  gleam  in  the  sun  with  their  terraces, 
gardens,  statues,  and  shrines,  each  a  little  city  in  itself. 

This  earth  has  never  seen  before  or  since  so  prodigious 
an  accumulation  of  all  that  is  beautiful  and  rare.  The 
quarries  of  the  world  had  been  emptied  to  find  precious 
marbles.  Forests  of  exquisite  columns  met  the  gaze, 
porphyry,  purple  and  green,  polished  granite,  streaked 
marbles,  in  the  hues  of  a  tropical  bird,  yellow,  orange, 
rosy,  and  carnation,  ten  thousand  statues,  groups  and 
colossi  of  dazzling  Parian  or  of  golden  bronze,  the  work 
of  Greek  genius,  of  myriads  of  slaves,  of  unlimited 


ROME   REVISITED  297 

wealth  and  absolute  command.  Power  so  colossal, 
centralisation  so  ruthless,  luxury  so  frantic,  the  world 
had  never  seen,  and  we  trust  can  never  see  again. 

Strangely  enough  this  portentous  accumulation  of 
riches  and  splendour  lay  open  to  all  comers.  The  one 
thing  that  could  not  be  seen  (till  the  Empire  was  nearing 
its  close)  was  a  wall,  a  fortress,  a  defence  of  any  kind. 
Rome  of  the  Caesars  was  as  free  from  any  military  look 
as  London  to-day.  It  had  neither  wall  nor  citadel  nor 
forts.  It  was  guarded  only  by  a  few  thousand  soldiers 
and  a  few  thousand  police.  For  four  centuries  or  so  it 
flourished  in  all  its  glory.  There  followed  some  ten 
centuries  of  ruin,  waste,  desolation,  and  chaos,  until  its 
restoration  began — a  restoration  sometimes  that  was  a 
new  and  worse  ruin.  The  broken  fragments  only  can  be 
seen  to-day.  Here  and  there  a  few  mutilated  columns, 
cornices,  staircases,  and  pavements,  the  foundations  of 
vast  temples,  theatres,  and  porticoes,  the  skeleton  of  a  few 
buildings  too  vast  to  be  destroyed,  a  few  half-ruined 
arches,  a  number  of  broken  statues  in  marble,  and  one 
complete  in  bronze,  rescued  because  it  was  wrongly 
supposed  to  be  a  Christian  sovereign.  All  else  is  dust 
and  endless  tantalising  dreams.  But  that  dust  draws 
men  to  it  as  no  other  dust  ever  can.  And  he  who  begins 
to  dream  longs  to  dream  again  and  again. 


CHAPTER    X 

IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS 

ON  a  recent  visit  to  Athens,  I  was  introduced  to  a 
beautiful  and  patriotic  Athenian  lady,  the  wife  of  an 
official  of  rank,  who  begged  me  to  write  about  Athens 
on  my  return  home  (this,  I  may  say,  is  an  ordinary 
form  of  politeness  in  that  capital).  When  I  promised 
rather  rashly  that  I  would  try  to  do  something,  she 
took  my  breath  away  by  asking  if  I  meant  to  write 
about  ancient  or  modern  Athens  ?  This  question  did 
seem  to  me  one  of  startling  natvett  \  and  I  helplessly 
replied  that,  whatever  I  said,  should  be  about  Athens — 
one  and  indivisible.  My  daring  paradox  was  rewarded 
with  a  gracious  smile. 

My  answer  was,  however,  not  at  all  so  extravagant  as 
at  first  sight  might  appear.  It  is  true  that  of  all  cities 
of  the  world  of  any  pretensions,  Athens  is  the  one  of 
which  the  ancient  history  (and  the  ancient  history  of  a 
very  short  period)  is  all  absorbing.  We  all  dream  of 
having  seen  Athens,  or  dream  of  one  day  seeing  Athens, 
for  the  sake  of  the  overpowering  memories  of  some  two 
or  three  centuries  at  most.  When  we  are  at  Athens, 
our  eyes  and  our  thoughts  are  filled  with  the  sublime 
and  up-soaring  remnants  of  that  brief  epoch  in  the  great 
age  of  the  Republic.  From  that  epoch  until  our  own 
lifetime,  the  history  of  Athens,  except  for  a  few  trivial 
scuffles  and  isolated  notices,  has  been  a  mere  blank, 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  299 

almost  as  much  as  if  it  had  been  another  Pompeii 
buried  under  the  dust  of  a  volcano  and  recently  dis- 
interred. 

But,  within  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  we  may  say, 
Athens  has  risen  up  out  of  its  tomb  : — not  like  Pompeii, 
dead,  silent,  deaf,  and  voiceless,  but  eagerly  revivifying 
the  city  of  Pericles  after  some  2300  years  ;  reproducing 
the  language,  the  political  habits,  the  names,  the  intel- 
lectual peculiarities,  even  the  architecture  and  the  tastes 
of  the  ancient  city — rising  up,  like  Lazarus,  after  all 
these  centuries,  talking  and  living,  as  if  the  death  of 
twenty-three  centuries  had  been  a  trance.  This  fact, 
however  superficial  and  artificial  it  may  be  in  many 
ways,  however  little  the  modern  city  can  compare  with 
the  art  and  thought  of  the  ancient  city,  is  a  striking 
fact  psychological,  social,  and  historical.  And  hence, 
there  is  a  strong  tendency  to  consider  Athens  as  it  is, 
even  whilst  studying  what  Athens  was.  At  Rome,  or 
at  Alexandria,  there  is  almost  nothing  but  the  stones 
and  the  sites,  to  remind  one  of  the  ancient  people.  At 
Athens,  the  first  impression  is  a  sort  of  serio-comic 
fancy  revival  of  the  old  city.  We  stand  in  the  Forum 
or  the  Piazza  Navona  at  Rome  without  imagining 
that  the  cab-drivers  or  the  fruit-sellers  have  anything 
in  common  with  Coriolanus  or  Camillus.  They  do 
not  speak  the  language,  or  use  the  names,  or  imitate 
the  forms  of  the  Republic.  But  as  one  walks  along 
the  oSo?  'Ep/ioy  in  full  view  of  the  Acropolis,  or  listens 
to  Tricoupi  addressing  the  S^io?  'Adyvalos  in  the  open 
air  in 'a  language  which  Thucydides  could  understand, 
and  which  he  would  have  rejoiced  to  cast  into  stately 
epigrams,  as  we  pass  under  the  Doric  colonnades,  in 
dazzling  Pentelic  marble,  of  the  Academy,  and  the 
Museum — it  is  difficult  to  be  quite  indifferent  to  the 


300  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

revival — as  some  say,  the  scenic  revival — but,  in  any 
case,  a  most  suggestive  historical  renascence.  As  Byron 
felt,  as  competent  historians  feel,  it  is  impossible  to  be 
wholly  blind  to  the  living  Athens  of  to-day. 

My  own  two  visits  to  Greece  were  too  short  to  allow 
anything  that  can  be  called  research,  and  these  pages 
will  aim  at  nothing  but  the  recalling  a  few  first  im- 
pressions. When  one  arrives  in  Greece,  the  first  thing 
that  strikes  us  is  that  we  have  left  Europe  behind.  It  is 
true  that  Greece  is  not  in  Asia  or  in  Africa,  and  hardly 
in  the  East ;  but  in  spite  of  the  maps,  it  is  only  con- 
ventionally in  Europe.  Greece  is  something  between 
Europe  and  the  East,  with  a  certain  dash  of  the  South. 
The  climate,  the  continuous  blaze  of  the  sun,  the  long 
months  of  complete  drought,  the  dusty  plains  and  dry 
water-courses,  the  aloes,  the  date  palms,  the  cotton,  the 
indigo,  the  currant-grape,  the  jackal,  the  chamaeleon, 
and  the  small  crocodile — even  the  camel  which  has 
been  seen  in  use — are  Eastern  and  Southern  rather  than 
European.  When  we  land  in  Greece,  we  find  ourselves 
in  the  middle  of  the  week  before  last,  that  is  to  say, 
they  still  use  the  Calendar  of  the  Eastern  Church,  and 
are  twelve  days  behind  us  in  Europe.  And  in  A.D.  1900 
this  will  have  become  thirteen  days,  for  in  the  West  we 
shall  omit  that  leap-year  and  gain  another  day.  In 
Greece  they  talk  of  the  post  coming  in  from  Europe, 
which  it  only  does  when  a  ship  arrives,  and  they  speak 
of  European  things,  in  the  sense  of  foreign.  In  spite  of 
the  conventional  statements  of  the  geographers,  Greece 
is  not  in  Europe  ;  but  a  half-way  house  between  Europe 
and  Asia. 

Another  important  fact,  which  the  geographers  ignore, 
is  this — that  Greece  is  an  island  for  any  practical 
purpose — or  rather  an  interminable  string  of  islands 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  30 1 

scattered  along  the  Eastern  Mediterranean  over  a  space 
of  sea  that  may  measure  some  500  miles,  both  north 
and  south,  east  and  west.  The  maps  may  show  Greece 
as  a  prolongation  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  ;  but  it  would 
not  be  practicable  for  an  ordinary  traveller  to  reach 
Greece  except  by  sea.  Athens,  though  it  is  a  capital  city 
of  Europe,  cannot  be  reached  by  the  continental  railways. 
The  train  will  carry  us  direct  from  Calais  to  the  furthest 
extremities  of  the  Spanish,  Italian,  Austrian,  Russian, 
and  even  Turkish  dominions  in  Europe.  But  railways 
do  not  reach  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula  south  of  Salonica, 
in  Turkey.  The  Romans  and  the  Turks  had  roads 
into  Greece  proper  ;  but  it  is  now  unsafe,  very  fatiguing, 
and  costly,  to  travel  by  land  from  Salonica  to  Athens, 
and  nobody  does  so.  Hence,  practically,  socially, 
politically,  and  economically  speaking,  Greece  is  an 
island,  a  vast  cluster  of  islands  placed  in  the  ^Egean 
Sea,  very  far  East  and  very  far  South.  Athens  lies 
east  of  Poland  and  of  Hungary.  The  whole  of  Greece 
lies  south  of  Naples  and  Taranto ;  and  Crete  lies  south 
of  the  Algerian  coast  and  of  any  point  of  Europe. 

We  must  go  to  Greece  by  sea :  and  the  sea  voyage 
is  most  instructive.  There  is  a  long,  lonely,  restless 
stretch  of  sea,  some  400  miles  broad  between  the  coast 
of  Sicily  and  sight  of  the  mountains  of  Attica.  When 
the  vast  pinnacle  of  Aetna,  with  its  trailing  pennon  of 
smoke,  a  pinnacle  which,  hour  after  hour  seems  to  rise 
in  the  sky,  at  last  fades  out  of  sight  in  the  west,  a  long 
reach  of  unbroken  sea  has  to  be  ploughed.  Long 
before  we  sight  the  mountains  of  Taygetus  or  the  head- 
lands of  Taenarum  or  Malea,  between  which  lies  the 
vale  of  '  Hollow  Lacedaemon,'  one  has  come  to  realise 
that  we  have  left  Europe  far  behind  and  are  entering 
on  the  land  of  the  rising  sun.  The  old  saw  ran — 


302  THE    CITY    IN    HISTORY 

4  When  you  have  passed  Cape  Malea,  make  your  will 
and  say  farewell  to  your  kindred.'  That  is  no  longer 
necessary  or  even  prudent.  But  by  the  time  that  \ve 
have  rounded  Cape  Malea  and  are  steering  north-east 
instead  of  south-east,  it  breaks  upon  us  that  we  have 
left  Europe  some  distance  behind  us. 

Whatever  geographers  may  pretend,  there  is  not  any 
such  country  as  Greece — and  there  never  was.  There 
is  no  definitely  marked  portion  of  Europe  inhabited 
by  a  people  politically  and  socially  one,  with  national 
traditions  and  habits.  There  is  not  now,  and  there 
never  has  been  in  ancient  or  in  modern  times.  If  we 
take  a  list  of  the  illustrious  Greeks  of  antiquity,  we 
shall  find  that  far  the  larger  part  of  them  belonged 
not  to  continental  Greece  proper,  but  to  Greek  com- 
munities spread  out  over  the  world  from  the  coast  of 
Spain  to  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  from  the  Euxinc 
to  the  coast  of  Africa.  There  is  now  a  Greek  language, 
a  Greek  church,  a  Greek  nationality,  possibly  to  some 
degree,  but  very  doubtfully,  a  Greek  race,  spread  over 
many  countries,  over  a  thousand  islands,  mingled  with 
other  races,  languages,  and  countries  ;  subdivided,  dis- 
persed, and  scattered  over  more  than  a  thousand  miles, 
though  the  population  of  the  entire  Greek  kingdom  is 
not  half  that  of  London.  All  good  Greeks  would  be 
scandalised  if  Crete  was  not  included  in  Greece — Crete 
where  they  say  true  Hellenes  survive.  And  if  Crete, 
why  not  Rhodes,  why  not  Cyprus,  why  not  Smyrna, 
Chios,  Lesbos,  and  the  other  islands  of  the  Archi- 
pelago? Till  Athens  lately  became  populous,  there 
were  more  Greeks  in  Constantinople  than  in  Athens, 
and  it  is  always  said  of  a  purer  Hellenic  descent.  And 
no  other  Greek  town  except  Athens  and  Piraeus  contains 
as  many  Greeks  as  there  are  in  Smyrna,  or  Alexandria, 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  303 

perhaps  in  Trieste,  or  London.  Where  does  Greece 
begin  and  end?  All  genuine  Greeks  deny  with  in- 
dignation that  Greece  is  limited  by  the  present  frontiers 
of  the  actual  kingdom.  What  are  its  local  limits? 
Every  true  Hellene,  and  every  Philhellene  states  them 
in  a  different  way.  A  Greek  orator  addressing  the 
people  of  Athens  talks  not  of  their  country,  but  of 
Hellenismus  or  Panhellenism,  that  is,  the  common 
aspirations  of  the  so-called  Greek  race.  Greece  may 
mean  a  nation  ;  it  cannot  mean  a  country. 

Until  we  see  Greece  we  hardly  realise  that  Greece 
is  practically  all  mountains,  tremendous  bare  precipitous 
mountains,  with  hardly  any  real  plains  of  any  size 
except  at  extreme  points.  The  islands  are  so  numerous 
and  so  close  to  the  mainland  that  they  practically 
form  part  of  it.  They  are  mere  tops  of  mountains 
rising  out  of  the  sea.  And  it  is  much  easier  to 
pass  from  one  island  to  another,  than  from  one  point 
of  the  mainland  to  another  a  few  miles  off.  In 
sailing  across  the  y£gean  Sea,  from  the  time  we 
sight  Cape  Taenarum  (Matapan)  until  we  reach  the 
Bosphorus,  some  500  miles,  we  never  lose  sight  of 
mountains  towering  out  of  the  sea.  From  Taenarum 
we  can  see  the  mountains  of  Crete  100  miles  off;  and 
in  passing  up  the  Archipelago,  we  see  on  one  side  the 
islands  and  mainland  of  Asia  Minor  on  the  East,  and 
the  islands  and  mainland  of  European  Greece  on  the 
West.  Hence,  the  whole  of  Greece,  mainland  and 
islands  together,  looks  not  like  a  definite  country  such 
as  Italy,  Spain,  France,  or  England,  but  a  long  chain 
of  Alps  or  Andes,  half  submerged  in  the  Eastern 
Mediterranean,  and  thrusting  a  thousand  bare  and 
jagged  peaks  to  form  islands  in  the  sea. 

The  mountains  are  themselves  lofty ;  and  since  they 


304  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

are  usually  seen  as  if  they  rose  straight  up  out  of  the 
sea,  they  look  stupendous,  even  to  eyes  familiar  with  the 
Alps,  the  Pyrenees,  and  the  Apennines.  The  principal 
mountains  in  Greece  are  more  than  twice  the  height 
of  Snowdon.  Olympus,  the  loftiest  of  all,  is  more  than 
twice  the  height  of  Ben  Nevis  with  Arthur's  Seat  at 
Edinburgh  on  the  top  of  that.  The  mountains  which 
gird  Athens  round  like  a  crown  (Mr.  Symonds  thinks 
they  form  what  the  poet  calls  '  the  crown  of  purple ') 
are  loftier  than  Snowdon  and  Ben  Nevis,  and  yet  they 
are  all  within  a  day's  walk  of  the  city.  Thus  from 
every  point  of  view,  Greece  is  not  so  much  a  country 
as  a  vast  mountain  chain  half  submerged  in  the  sea. 
And  owing  to  the  multiplicity  and  height  of  the  moun- 
tains, the  small  area  in  which  they  are  concentrated, 
the  singular  transparency  of  the  air,  and  the  degree 
to  which  the  land  is  indented  and  intersected  by  sea, 
Greece  appears  to  be  strangely  small, — even  smaller 
than  it  really  is.  It  is  hardly  any  where  more  than 
two  hundred  miles  deep,  or  one  hundred  miles  broad. 
So  that  from  almost  any  elevated  point,  the  greater 
part  of  Greece  can  be  seen  at  once.  Attica,  the 
Peloponnesus,  the  Eastern  islands,  the  mountains  of 
Bceotia,  Argolis,  Arcadia  and  Euboea,  are  all  to  be 
seen  together.  Attica  is  hardly  bigger  than  the  Isle 
of  Wight,  and  infinitely  less  open  to  cultivation  and 
transit.  And  ancient  Athens  would  easily  stand  in 
the  area  of  Hyde  Park  and  Kensington  Gardens. 

When  we  see  it,  we  realise  how  small  Greece  is,  in 
one  sense ;  and  yet  how  widely  spread  out  over  the 
Eastern  Mediterranean.  Continental  Greece  is  merely 
one  vast  mountain  mass,  into  whose  lateral  valleys 
and  gorges  the  sea  has  forced  a  channel.  And  yet, 
in  another  sense,  Greece  with  its  interminable  chain 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  305 

of  rocky  islets,  from  Corcyra  to  Crete,  from  Crete  to  the 
Propontis,  seems  to  lead  on  in  a  continuous  land  for 
a  thousand  miles.  The  mainland  is  severed  by  nature 
into  small  segments,  each  hardly  able  by  itself  to  feed 
a  thousand  families.  All  Attica  can  hardly  grow  as 
much  food  as  a  single  great  estate  in  England,  France, 
or  Russia.  Eleusis,  which  Athens  ultimately  subdued 
and  incorporated,  is  not  so  far  from  Athens  as  is 
Shepherd's  Bush  from  Woolwich ;  and  these  famous 
towns  are  separated  from  each  other  by  a  steep  and 
difficult  mountain  pass,  which  a  regiment  could  hold 
against  an  army  corps.  Megara,  which  was  a  thorn 
in  the  side  of  Athens  at  the  time  of  her  imperial  glory, 
was  not  much  further  from  her  than  is  Gravesend  from 
London.  Corinth,  the  deadly  enemy  of  Athens,  could 
be  seen  from  the  Acropolis.  ^Egina,  which  Themistocles 
so  earnestly  advised  the  Athenians  to  incorporate,  looks 
as  near  to  Athens  as  Harrow  looks  to  Notting  Hill  ; 
and  a  single  oarsman  might  row  himself  across  the 
gulf  in  any  open  boat. 

The  mighty  statue  in  bronze  of  Athene  Promachos, 
the  famous  work  of  Pheidias,  which,  with  its  pedestal, 
towered  some  sixty  feet  on  the  summit  of  the  Acropolis, 
could  be  seen  from  the  coast  of  Argolis  or  from  any 
of  the  heights  of  Corinth,  Megara,  yEgina,  or  Bceotia. 
Thence  they  could  behold  Athene  keeping  watch  night 
and  day  over  her  beloved  city.  One  used  to  doubt  if 
this  famous  image  could  escape  the  charge  of  obtrusive 
monstrosity  which  is  the  note  of  colossal  statues.  But 
when  we  stand  on  the  spot,  and  remember  how  this 
resplendent  figure  of  the  Patron  Goddess  ever  faced 
the  enemies  of  Athens,  as  each  sunrise  and  sunset  tipped 
with  golden  fire  the  point  of  her  spear  and  the  crest 
of  her  helm,  we  may  conceive  how  this  Palladium 

U 


306  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

sank  into  the  popular  imagination.  And  \ve  sec  fresh 
meaning  in  the  tale  how,  eight  hundred  years  after  the 
date  of  its  erection,  Alaric  and  his  Goths  had  been 
scared  from  their  raid  on  the  Acropolis  by  the  vision  of 
the  Goddess  keeping  ward  over  her  city  in  arms. 

As  the  traveller  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  sails  up 
the  Gulf  of  JEgina.,  and  his  straining  eyes  at  last  behold 
Attica  and  Athens,  the  impression  is  always  the  same. 
How  magnificent  is  the  amphitheatre  in  the  centre  of 
which  stands  the  Acropolis ;  how  majestic  and  up- 
soaring  is  the  grandest  of  all  ruins  on  its  immortal  steep  ; 
how  incredibly  near  together  are  placed  these  mighty 
memorials  and  historic  sites  ;  how  marvellously  small  is 
the  stage  on  which  these  undying  dramas  were  played ! 
How  sublime  is  ancient  Athens  in  its  loneliness  :  how  in- 
finitesimally  small  is  the  space  it  occupied  on  the  earth ! 

The  situation  of  Athens  is  far  grander  than  that  of 
Rome,  or  Florence,  perhaps  even  that  of  Naples,  and  of 
any  city  in  Europe  except  Constantinople,  which  is 
a  wholly  different  thing.  The  nearness  and  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  mountain  amphitheatre  round  Athens, 
the  great  height  and  grand  form  of  the  mountains, 
the  splendid  mass  and  elevation  of  the  Acropolis  in 
the  centre,  produce  an  impression  more  strange,  simple, 
and  imposing  than  any  city  of  the  West.  From  the 
distance  at  sea,  what  we  behold  is  a  vast  ruin  on  a 
noble  cliff.  If  we  do  not  so  much  consider  beauty  and 
picturesque  charm  such  as  that  of  Naples,  Palermo, 
Verona,  and  Venice,  but  mass,  unity,  and  weight  of 
stroke  in  the  impression,  we  may  well  feel  that  in 
simple,  and  it  may  be  almost  painful,  majesty,  nothing 
in  Western  Europe  can  equal  the  first  sight  of  Athens. 
And  what  a  mere  shelf  of  rock  it  looks,  buttressed 
round  by  mountains  on  all  sides  but  towards  the  sea ! 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  307 

Like  the  rock  of  Gibraltar,  Athens  stands  an  imposing 
mass  towering  out  of  the  sea,  lonely,  unapproachable 
by  landward,  and  hardly  habitable  apart  from  the  sea  ; 
suggesting  at  first  sight  far  off  empire  across  the  sea, 
useless  and  unintelligible,  except  as  the  impregnable 
fastness  of  a  sea-born  race. 

Attica  itself  is  a  mere  rocky  shelf  opening  down  to 
the  sea,  but  with  nothing  around  it  or  behind  it  land- 
wards, except  jagged  mountain  peaks,  defiles,  and 
citadels  held  by  her  enemies  and  rivals.  As  we  stand 
on  the  Propylaea  and  survey  the  magnificent  panorama 
of  rock,  promontory,  crags,  gorges,  and  mountain  ranges 
one  beyond  the  other,  rising  into  the  sky,  5000,  6000, 
even  8000  feet,  we  are  looking  on  soil  trodden  by  the 
fiercest  enemies  of  Athens  in  the  days  of  her  greatest 
strength,  by  Boeotians,  Argives,  Corinthians,  Achaeans, 
and  Arcadians.  An  Athenian  thus  lived  ever  in  full 
view  of  the  home  of  his  enemies,  and  could  behold 
some  of  the  most  memorable  scenes  in  his  own  history, 
and  also  the  birthplace  and  the  tombs  of  some  of  his 
most  famous  chiefs.  The  history  of  Athens,  its  triumphs 
and  its  weakness,  had  for  its  cradle  one  single  rocky 
amphitheatre.  And  yet,  as  Comte  has  finely  put  it,  it 
was  easier  for  her  to  conquer  a  wide  empire  on  the  seas, 
than  it  was  to  subdue  a  neighbouring  state  within  a  day's 
march  of  her  citadel.  She  could  plant  her  trophies, 
her  colonies,  and  her  subject  cities  all  over  the  Medi- 
terranean, from  Sicily  in  the  West  to  the  Propontis  on 
the  North,  and  to  Crete  and  Rhodes  in  the  East ;  but 
she  never  could  subdue  many  a  petty  republic,  whose 
territory  could  be  seen  as  the  citizens  climbed  the  great 
staircase  to  the  shrine  of  Athene. 

Let  every  traveller  hasten  to  reach  the  top  of  Mount 
Pentelicus.  It  is  loftier  than  Snowdon  ;  but  it  is  only 


308  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

some  twelve  miles  from  Athens,  a  morning  walk  for  the 
average  hill-climber.  In  the  hollow  which  seems  to  lie 
beneath  our  feet,  as  we  gaze  on  the  wonderful  scene 
from  the  summit,  the  Acropolis,  with  the  Parthenon 
and  Propylasa  portico,  dominates  the  basin  of  Athens. 
It  is  easy  to  mark  the  Pnyx  where  Themistocles  and 
Pericles,  Alcibiades  and  Demosthenes  addressed  the 
people ;  there  is  the  agora  where  Socrates  stood  and 
questioned  all  who  cared  to  answer ;  there  is  Mars'  Hill 
where  Paul  spoke  to  philosophers  and  idlers  about 
the  Unknown  God.  One  can  almost  make  out  the 
olive  grove  which  still  seems  to  mark  the  site  of  Plato's 
Academy,  and  not  far  from  it  the  knoll  which  marks 
Colonos,  the  birthplace  of  Sophocles,  the  scene  of  his 
exquisite  drama  of  the  exiled  CEdipus.  In  the  two 
hundred  years  that  sever  the  age  of  Pisistratus  from 
that  of  Demosthenes,  what  a  harvest  of  genius  in  all 
forms  of  human  power — in  war,  art,  poetry,  policy, 
philosophy — has  been  gathered  from  that  little  field, 
which  from  our  mountain  top  looks  like  a  few  bare, 
barren,  sun-baked  acres  !  What  an  outburst  of  human 
activity  and  invention  in  that  dazzling  light  and  purity 
of  atmosphere,  where,  as  their  poet  says,  they  passed 
their  days  '  in  dainty  delight,  in  most  pellucid  air,'  or  as 
our  own  poet  has  said — 

'  Where,  on  the  ^tgean  shore,  a  city  stands 
Built  nobly,  pure  the  air  and  light  the  soil.' 

The  atmosphere  of  Athens  still  seems  to  be  light  rather 
than  air :  its  soil  seems  to  be  not  earth,  but  the  dust  of 
white  marble. 

Still  standing  on  Pentelicus,  we  may  see  a  little 
further  Piraeus  and  the  three  ports  beside  the  blue  gulf, 
from  whence  some  thousand  fleets  of  triremes  have  set 


IMPRESSIONS   OF  ATHENS  309 

sail  for  all  parts  of  the  Mediterranean.  And  just  across 
the  thin  streak  of  blue  rises  the  island  of  Salamis.  The 
water  beneath  it  is  the  scene  of  the  most  famous  sea- 
fight  in  history :  beyond,  the  hills  look  down  on  the 
birthplace  of  ^Eschylus  :  in  the  distance  rise  up  the 
the  crag  of  Aero-Corinth  and  the  mountains  of  Argolis, 
Cithaeron,  Helicon,  Parnes,  and  Hymettus.  To  the 
west  and  south,  half  Greece  can  be  outlined,  or  traced 
by  its  topmost  peaks  and  distant  islands.  If  we  turn 
northwards,  beneath  our  feet,  an  hour  or  two  on  foot 
below  us,  lies  a  quiet  drowsy  plain  along  the  sea-coast, 
sheltered  by  the  vast  ranges  of  Eubcea.  That  quiet 
drowsy  plain  is  Marathon,  where  Greeks  first  met  the 
Mede  in  arms  in  the  great  day  of  the  Athenian  glory. 
The  tumulus  still  to  be  seen  was  always  known  as  the 
sepulchre  of  the  Athenian  warriors.  Along  the  reedy 
shore  ^Eschylus  and  his  brothers  fought  in  the  desperate 
embarcation  of  the  Persians.  And  in  the  northern 
distance  we  see  the  mountains  which  tower  above 
Thermopylae.  This  union  of  magnificent  scenery  with 
so  large  a  prospect  over  historic  scenes,  this  vast  pano- 
rama over  the  memorials  of  events  commemorated  in 
the  greatest  poetry  and  prose  of  the  world,  makes  the 
view  from  Pentelicus  live  in  the  memory  with  that 
other  prospect  from  the  campanile  of  the  Capitol  at 
Rome. 

The  nearness  of  every  one  of  these  historic  scenes, 
the  infinitely  petty  stage  which  these  immortal  men  of 
genius  trod  in  life,  the  brief  moment  of  human  history 
into  which  they  were  crowded,  takes  away  the  breath. 
Here  in  a  town  of  very  moderate  size  and  population, 
within  the  span  of  one  human  life,  there  lived  and 
worked  Miltiades,  Themistocles,  Pericles,  Alcibiades, 
^schylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Aristophanes,  Pheidias, 


3IO  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

Thucydides,  Socrates,  Plato,  some  of  the  most  brilliant 
generals,  statesmen,  politicians  known  to  universal 
history,  the  greatest  tragic  genius,  the  greatest  comic 
genius,  the  supreme  art  genius  recorded  in  the  annals 
of  mankind,  the  great  master  of  philosophic  history, 
two  out  of  the  three  great  chiefs  of  ancient  philosophy. 
All  of  these  were  born  and  bred  within  walking  dis- 
tance of  this  unique  spot,  and  all  of  them  within  little 
more  than  a  hundred  years.  There  is  nothing  like  this 
in  the  whole  history  of  mankind.  Even  in  Florence, 
Giotto,  Dante,  Leonardo,  Michael  Angelo,  and  Galileo, 
were  separated  by  nearly  four  centuries  ;  and  in  Judita, 
from  Samuel  to  Ezekiel,  we  may  possibly  count  some 
six  centuries.  It  is  this  sudden  blazing  up  of  supreme 
genius  on  this  mere  speck  of  rock  for  one  short  period 
— and  then  utter  silence — which  makes  the  undying 
charm  of  this  magic  spot  of  earth. 

What  a  light  this  throws  on  ancient  history !  As 
we  stand  on  Pentelicus,  with  the  Acropolis,  Marathon, 
Salamis,  Piraeus,  and  Eleusis  at  our  feet,  we  behold 
bays,  plains,  and  hills,  the  dwellers  wherein  were  ever 
.strangers  and  enemies  of  Athens.  No  Megarian,  no 
Argive,  no  Corinthian,  no  Boeotian,  ever  could  become 
a  citizen  or  share  in  the  political  and  religious  privi- 
leges of  Athens.  Homer,  Sappho,  Pindar,  Theocritus, 
Pythagoras,  Aristotle,  Archimedes,  and  Hipparchus 
were  mere  foreigners  at  Athens,  aliens  and  sojourners 
amongst  the  lawful  citizens.  Let  him  cross  that  narrow 
streak  of  blue  sea,  and  the  Corinthian  at  Athens,  or  the 
Athenian  at  Corinth,  was  what  the  Parisian  is  at  Berlin, 
or  the  Prussian  in  Paris.  What  would  England  be,  if 
a  Kent  man  were  an  alien  in  Essex,  if,  from  the  hill  at 
Sydenham,  the  Londoner  looked  on  a  people  with 
whom  he  could  neither  trade,  nor  worship,  nor  inter- 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  311 

marry,  nor  hold  civil  or  military  relations?  What,  if 
from  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  the  Londoner  looked  down 
on  the  city  wherein  were  born  and  passed  their  whole 
lives  Alfred,  Edward,  Cromwell,  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Bacon,  Newton,  and  Scott,  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Words- 
worth ;  if  from  Primrose  Hill,  he  could  look  down  on 
the  fields  of  Azincourt  and  Blenheim,  of  Trafalgar  and 
Waterloo.  Now  at  Athens,  the  Athenian  looked  day 
by  day  on  the  home  of  his  national  heroes,  on  the 
scenes  of  his  national  glory,  and  the  works  of  his 
greatest  artists,  and  also  on  the  frowning  strongholds 
of  his  deadly  enemies. 

It  requires  an  effort  to  bring  home  to  the  mind  the 
small  scale  of  ancient  Athens.  It  does  not  seem  within 
the  old  walls  to  have  exceeded  a  square  mile,  about  the 
area  of  Hyde  Park  and  Kensington  Gardens,  and  one- 
hundredth  part  of  London.  Out  of  this  space,  the 
Acropolis,  wholly  devoted  to  public  buildings,  the 
Areopagus,  the  Pnyx,  and  the  Agora  must  have  occu- 
pied at  least  one-tenth.  But  a  few  hundred  acres,  or 
the  area  of  one  of  the  large  London  parks  remained  for 
private  houses.  These  were  mainly  of  wood  and  plaster, 
principally  used  at  night.  Of  mansions  for  private 
citizens,  of  a  permanent  kind,  there  is  no  vestige  nor 
any  reference  in  classical  times.  The  normal  popula- 
tion could  hardly  have  exceeded  25,000  full  citizens  ; 
and  we  cannot  believe  that  the  city  and  the  ports 
together  could  ever  have  contained  200,000  souls,  even 
counting  slaves,  strangers,  women,  and  children. 

Their  whole  life  was  public  :  their  main  life  was  spent 
in  the  open  air.  Their  homes  were  shelters  at  night, 
with  harems  for  the  women  and  children.  The  climate 
of  Athens  is  such  that  nothing  to  be  called  winter  cold 
occurs  between  the  end  of  February  and  the  middle  of 


312  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

December,  and  rain  seldom  falls  between  May  and  the 
end  of  October.  We  must  imagine  the  Athenians  of 
the  great  age  as  a  very  small  class  of  free  and  privileged 
men,  personally  known  to  each  other,  living  on  terms  of 
absolute  equality,  passing  their  lives  in  public,  mainly 
in  the  porticoes,  colonnades,  temples,  and  market-places, 
having  little  serious  work  except  in  time  of  war,  with 
strong  civic  patriotism,  and  intense  local  superstitions, 
lounging  about  with  a  noble  sense  of  superiority  like 
the  officers  of  the  guard  in  some  military  capital.  They 
were  educated  in  certain  things  and  in  certain  modes 
beyond  the  wildest  dream  of  modern  culture,  with  all 
hard  work  committed  to  slaves,  all  cares  of  the  house- 
hold to  women  :  passionately  keen  about  grace,  beauty, 
wit,  and  intellect.  Their  culture  consisted  of  poetry, 
mythology,  music,  gymnastics,  arithmetic,  the  art  of 
conversation,  infinite  subtlety  in  the  use  of  their  own 
language,  and  abnormal  sensitiveness  to  rhythm,  grace 
of  expression,  wit,  and  all  forms  of  beauty.  So  they 
lived  daintily,  as  their  poet  said,  in  a  balmy  flood  of 
light,  surrounded  by  temples,  statues,  porticoes,  shrines, 
and  paintings,  and  at  every  corner  of  their  city  domi- 
nated by  the  radiant  majesty  of  the  Acropolis  and  its 
divine  Guardian. 

It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  the  effect  of  a  building  of 
Pentelic  marble  in  that  atmosphere  until  one  has  seen  it 
on  the  spot.  But  when  we  behold  a  new  marble  colon- 
nade in  that  pellucid  air,  sparkling  like  the  Silberhorn 
peak  of  the  Jungfrau  in  the  early  morning  light,  we 
instantly  comprehend  the  peculiarities  of  that  style.  A 
Doric  pediment  in  London  no  more  enables  us  to  under- 
stand a  temple  at  Athens  than  the  bronze  Achilles  of 
Hyde  Park  recalls  to  us  the  Athene  Promachos  of 
Pheidias.  The  Vestry  of  the  Church  of  St.  Pancras  in 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  313 

Euston  Square  is  not  more  like  the  Erechtheum  than  the 
pediment  of  St.  Martin's  in  the  Fields  is  like  the  Par- 
thenon. The  British  Museum,  the  only  tolerable  Greek 
building  in  London,  looks  somewhat  as  a  Greek  temple 
might  look  during  the  eruption  of  a  volcano.  Two 
thousand  three  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  have 
tinged  the  Parthenon  and  the  Propylaea,  a  deep  orange 
or  russet.  But  a  new  building  of  Pentelic  marble  in  the 
sky  of  Athens  stands  out  soft,  white,  and  dazzling  with 
light.  In  the  modern  edifices  of  new  Athens,  built  from 
the  same  quarry,  we  see  the  pearly  radiance  of  the 
marble,  the  need  and  the  uses  of  colour,  the  repose  and 
coolness  of  these  spacious  colonnades  and  that  which 
has  been  the  puzzle  of  antiquarians — the  entire  absence 
of  window.  We  are  quite  unable  to  conceive  buildings 
without  windows  :  we  cannot  work  windows  into  Greek 
designs.  At  Athens  we  see  that  a  colonnade  of  Pentelic 
marble  lights  itself,  and  in  the  sweetest  way.  The 
marble  is  semi-transparent.  It  diffuses,  reflects,  and 
harmonises  sunlight  in  so  mysterious  a  manner  that  a 
marble  hall  is  bathed  in  a  subdued  and  delicious  glow. 

If  we  revive  in  imagination  the  Acropolis  as  it  stood 
in  its  perfection,  we  see  with  new  force  the  undoubted 
historic  truth,  that  the  Athenians,  in  spite  of  their  rest- 
lessness, audacity,  and  individuality,  were  intensely  con- 
servative in  ideas,  slavishly  superstitious  about  spiritual 
evils,  and  as  St.  Paul  told  them  on  Mars'  Hill,  too  much 
bound  by  obsolete  scruples.  The  condemnation  to 
death  of  Socrates  and  of  Aristotle,  the  extreme  timidity 
of  Aristotle's  utterances,  the  panic  about  the  Hermae, 
the  mob-fury  after  the  battle  of  Arginusae  prove  it 
historically.  But  it  is  equally  patent  in  their  art.  It  is 
obvious  that  a  Doric  temple  was  slowly  developed  out 
of  a  small  shrine  having  beams  and  pillars  of  wood. 


314  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

The  form  was  rigidly  maintained  when  the  material  and 
the  scale  were  changed  ;  and,  when  temples  were  built 
of  a  vast  size,  they  were  still  ornamented  and  designed 
on  the  old  methods,  however  inapplicable  these  had 
become.  As  we  stand  beneath  the  peristyle  and  pedi- 
ment of  the  Parthenon,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  that,  in  a 
building  of  those  grand  dimensions  and  towering  posi- 
tion, the  lovely  frieze  and  even  the  majestic  figures  of 
the  pediment  must  have  been  sacrificed,  so  far  as  they 
never  could  be  properly  seen.  Pheidias  could  not  have 
been  blind  to  this  cruel  result  of  antique  convention. 
But  neither  he  nor  Pericles  would  have  dared  to  trans- 
gress the  sacred  canons  in  which  art  was  bound. 

The  superstitious  bigotry  of  the  Athenians  appears  in 
their  history,  their  habits,  their  institutions,  their  lan- 
guage, and  the  uniformity  of  their  architecture.  Stand 
on  the  spot  and  recall  the  Acropolis  in  its  glory,  and 
you  will  feel  that  there  must  have  been  after  all  a  pro- 
found monotony  and  rigidity  in  those  eternal  colonnades 
and  unvarying  architraves.  The  arch  was  unknown  in 
the  fine  age ;  the  temples  were  all  built  on  one  or  two 
uniform  patterns ;  it  was  left  to  Rome  to  develop  all 
the  uses  of  arch,  tower,  dome,  the  column  supporting  the 
arch,  the  successive  stories,  the  hemicycle,  and  groined 
roof — all  the  intricate  combinations  which  Rome  sug- 
gested to  modern  architecture.  Greece  remained  the 
slave  of  its  traditions  and  canons  of  art.  It  is  true  that 
it  avoided  the  incongruities  and  coarse  realism  of  later 
Roman  art.  But  it  was  left  to  Rome  to  make  art 
progressive  even  in  its  corruption.  Like  the  drama  of 
Racine,  Attic  art  remained  perfect  in  its  conventions. 
But  its  conventions  were  iron  chains. 

Accepting  its  traditional  conventions,  we  cannot  doubt 
that  the  Acropolis  must  have  displayed  in  its  splendour 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  315 

the  most  imposing  mass  of  buildings  ever  raised  by  man. 
With  Pheidias  we  feel  in  presence  of  the  supreme  artist 
(he  was  far  more  than  sculptor) — the  one  perfect  master 
in  the  history  of  art,  of  whose  faultless  genius  no  single 
side  was  weaker  or  less  noble  than  the  rest.  He  remains 
alone  of  men  (or  if  not  alone  then  it  may  be  with 
Homer,  Shakespeare,  Mozart)  one  whose  unerring 
instinct  transmuted  into  beauty  every  form  of  the  world 
around  him. 

There  is  one  aspect  of  Attic  art,  and  one  of  its  most 
impressive  types,  which  can  be  properly  seen  only  in 
Athens  itself.  This  is  the  monuments  of  the  dead :  of 
which  many  stand  in  the  ancient  cemetery  of  Cerameiais, 
and  many  are  collected  in  the  National  Museum.  In 
their  pensive  and  exquisite  pathos,  in  their  reserve,  in  their 
dignity  and  human  affection,  in  their  manly  simplicity — 
in  frank,  pure,  social,  and  humane  acceptance  of  death 
in  all  its  pathos  and  all  its  solemnity,  these  Athenian 
monuments  may  be  taken  as  the  highest  type  of  funeral 
emblems  that  the  world  possesses.  They  present  an 
aspect  of  Death  pensive,  affectionate,  social,  peaceful, 
and  beautiful.  There  is  nothing  of  the  ghastly  and 
cruel  symbolism  of  the  Middle  Ages,  nothing  of  the 
stately  and  pompous  mausoleums  dear  to  Roman  pride, 
nothing  of  the  impersonal  fatuity  of  our  modern  grave- 
stones. The  family  group  is  gathered  to  take  its  last 
farewell  of  the  departing.  He  or  she  is  not  stretched  on 
a  bed  or  bier,  not  sleeping,  not  wasted  by  sickness,  not 
ecstatically  transfigured.  They  sit  or  recline  in  all  their 
health  and  beauty,  sweetly  smiling,  as  a  loved  one  who 
is  about  to  take  a  distant  voyage.  The  family  grouped 
around  are  thoughtful,  serious,  not  sad,  loving  and  tender, 
but  not  overcome  with  grief;  they  too  take  a  long  fare- 
well of  the  traveller  about  to  depart.  At  his  feet  lies  a 


3i6  THE  CITY  i\   HISTORY 

favourite  dog,  some  bird  or  cherished  pet,  and  sometimes 
in  an  obscure  corner  a  little  slave  may  be  seen  howling 
for  his  master.  But  only  slaves  are  allowed  to  weep. 
Sometimes  the  young  warrior  is  mounted  on  his  steed, 
sometimes  is  seen  charging  in  the  midst  of  battle.  But, 
for  the  most  part,  all  is  ideal  beauty,  peace,  and  love. 

There  is  here  no  vain  pomp,  no  arrogance  of  wealth 
and  power,  heraldic  emblems,  swords,  coronets,  and 
robes  of  state.  Neither  is  there  the  horror  or  the  ecstasy, 
the  impossible  angels,  the  grotesque  demons,  the  skulls 
or  the  palm  branches  with  which  we  moderns  have  been- 
wont  to  bedizen  our  funeral  monuments.  It  recalls  to 
us  our  poet's  In  Meinoriain — a  work  too  of  calm  and 
ideal  art — towards  the  latest  phase  of  the  poet's  bereav- 
ment.  It  seems  as  if  the  sculptor  spoke  to  us  in  the 
words  of  the  late  Laureate  : — 

'  No  longer  caring  to  embalm 
In  dying  songs  a  dead  regret, 
But  like  a  statue  solid  set, 
And  moulded  in  colossal  calm.' 

Impressions — first  impressions  of  Athens  throng  on 
the  mind  so  closely  and  so  vividly,  that  they  are  not 
easily  reduced  to  order.  A  visit  to  Athens  is  worth  the 
study  of  a  hundred  books,  whether  classical  or  recent. 
Any  man  who  has  sailed  round  Greece  from  the  Ionian 
sea  to  the  ^Egean,  and  up  the  Gulf  of  Corinth,  and 
thence  to  that  of  ^Egina  and  Eleusis,  at  once  perceives 
that  Greece  was  destined  by  nature  to  be,  not  so  much 
the  country  of  a  settled  nation,  as  the  mere  pied-a-terre 
of  a  wonderful  race  whose  mission  was  to  penetrate  over 
the  whole  Mediterranean  and  its  shores.  These  so-called 
Greek  states,  celebrated  in  the  immortal  pages  of  Thucy- 
dides,  were  but  petty  cock-pits  wherein,  like  game  birds 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  317 

these  historic  republics  crowed,  strutted,  and  fought  each 
other.  Greek  war,  from  the  point  of  view  of  modern 
armies,  was  but  the  playing  at  soldiers  like  the  people 
of  Lilliput  and  Blefuscu.  An  army  which  could  not 
defend  such  a  country  as  Attica  from  invaders,  or  the 
army  which  having  got  beneath  the  Long-walls  could 
not  take  Athens,  can  hardly  be  classed  amongst  soldiers 
at  all.  Scipio  or  Julius  Caesar  with  one  legion  would 
have  settled  the  Peloponnesian  war  in  a  few  months. 
As  we  behold  it  from  a  near  height,  we  see  that  Athens 
always  was,  and  always  must  be,  an  artificial  city,  resting 
entirely  on  its  control  of  the  sea  and  territory  beyond 
sea.  There  is  nothing  behind  Athens  to  support  a 
population  and  there  never  can  be  anything.  Indeed  in 
continental  Greece  itself,  with  its  interminable  barren 
rocks,  there  is  no  room  for  anything  but  a  few  herds, 
and  sundry  patches  of  olives,  vines,  currants,  fruits,  and 
tobacco.  Continental  Greece  is  in  truth  a  mere  moun- 
tain rising  out  of  the  sea,  with  a  total  population  less 
than  that  of  the  city  of  Berlin. 

Greece  was  therefore  destined  to  be  a  sea  power 
only,  and,  in  recounting  its  achievements  on  land,  her 
historians  are  liable  to  mislead  us  altogether.  The 
Spartans  no  doubt  remained  for  many  centuries  in- 
dividually, like  Soudanese,  '  first-class  fighting  men.' 
But  they  knew  nothing  of  scientific  war,  and  seem 
throughout  their  history  to  have  been  commanded 
by  mere  drill-sergeants.  They  were,  as  a  Frenchman 
irreverently  remarked  of  another  brave  army,  '  lions  led 
by  asses.'  Their  stupidity,  slowness,  incapacity  to  de- 
velop the  art  of  war,  their  slavish  adherence  to  routine 
and  tradition,  prevented  them  for  ever  being  really  effec- 
tive ;  and,  though  they  were  a  race  of  mere  soldiers, 
they  never  became  a  really  warlike  race.  The  Athenians 


318  THE   CITY   IN   HISTORY 

however  good  at  sea,  were  on  land  untrustworthy, 
excitable,  undisciplined  crowds  of  civilians.  They  had 
hours  of  heroism,  as  at  Marathon  ;  but,  after  all,  Mara- 
thon was  rather  a  moral  victory,  won  by  genius,  Man,  and 
a  sort  of  spasmodic  patriotism  which  astonished  the 
victors  as  much  as  the  defeated.  It  was  hardly  a  great 
battle  fought  out  on  a  regular  plan.  And,  after  Mara- 
thon, the  Athenians  did  nothing  very  great  on  land. 
Their  campaigns  were  unworthy  of  notice,  and  their 
conduct  in  the  field  has  that  character  of  unsteadiness 
which  belongs  to  citizen  levies.  The  Macedonians 
under  Alexander  were  trained  and  excellent  troops 
equal  perhaps  to  anything  in  ancient  war ;  but  the 
Macedonians  were  not  Greeks.  It  is  melancholy  to 
think  how  largely  the  attention  of  academies  and  schools 
is  absorbed  in  these  trumpery  scuffles  which  have  no 
scientific  interest  of  their  own,  and  which,  from  the 
historical  point  of  view,  could  have  no  serious  result. 

It  is  the  wonderful  literary  and  poetic  genius  of  Greece 
which  has  given  a  halo  to  these  petty  mancEuvres. 
And  to  the  same  cause  may  be  traced  the  singular 
phenomenon  of  the  revival  of  Hellenism  in  the  pre- 
sent century,  by  a  people  who,  as  a  whole,  have  but 
a  tincture  of  Hellenic  blood.  The  process  of  reviving 
ancient  Greece  is  still  proceeding  with  immense  rapidity, 
and  in  curious  modes.  Seventy  years  ago,  Greek  (or 
Romaic  as  it  was  called)  was  a  tongue  only  spoken  by 
certain  classes  in  certain  places  ;  and  it  was  in  no  sense 
the  language  of  Xenophon  or  even  Plutarch.  None  but 
a  few  scholars  were  familiar  with  the  term  Hellenes,  or 
with  anything  of  Hellenic  history  or  literature.  The 
cultivated  men  of  Greece  have  now  placed  the  current 
Hellenic  tongue  much  nearer  to  that  of  Plutarch  than 
our  English  is  like  that  of  Chaucer ;  and  newspapers, 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS  319 

written  in  a  language  which  Herodotus  could  easily 
follow,  are  circulated  as  far  as  Trieste  and  Constanti- 
nople. After  two  thousand  years,  a  language,  which  is 
practically  the  Greek  of  literature,  is  again  paramount 
from  Corfu  to  Crete,  from  Larissa  to  Cerigo,  from  the 
Ionian  islands  to  the  Sporades.  The  ancient  names,  the 
ancient  architecture,  the  ancient  taste  for  reading,  are 
revived.  The  effect  is  that  of  an  illusion.  One's  guide 
is  Sophocles,  and  the  cab-driver  is  Themistocles ;  one 
drives  along  the  'OSo?  'E/o/ioO,  and  at  every  street  corner 
one  sees  a  name  familiar  to  us  in  Thucydides  and  Aris- 
tophanes, and  many  an  absurd  compound,  such  as 
iTnrocri&rjpoSpofAos,  or  tramway.  Of  course  much  of  all 
this  is  artificial,  and  irresistibly  comic,  like  the  solemn 
revival  of  Olympian  Games.  But  there  is  enough  below 
the  surface  to  be  counted  as  one  of  the  most  curious 
examples  of  the  subjective  filiation  of  ideas  to  be  met 
with  in  modern  times.  And  it  is  a  truly  pathetic  illus- 
tration of  the  imperishable  fascination  exerted  over  all 
after  ages,  by  the  genius  of  ancient  Hellas. 

The  revival  is  the  more  interesting,  since  few  com- 
petent observers  believe  in  the  survival  of  Hellenic  blood. 
It  is  needless  here  to  touch  on  the  obstinate  dispute  as  to 
how  much  of  the  blood  of  the  Hellenes  runs  in  the  veins 
of  the  modern  Greek  people.  In  certain  islands,  in  parts 
of  Peloponnesus,  in  certain  mountain  districts,  it  may 
do  so  to  a  qualified  extent.  In  some  parts  of  the  main- 
land, it  is  perhaps  almost  wholly  extinct,  and  Attica 
is  one  of  the  districts  where  the  immortal  fluid  is  the 
thinnest  of  all.  When  we  consider  how  greatly  Athens, 
its  ports,  mines,  and  territories,  was  even  in  ancient 
times  peopled  with  alien  blood  ;  how  that,  from  Chris- 
tian times  until  the  present  generation,  the  population 
of  Athens  had  sunk  to  that  of  a  village  ;  when  we  read 


320  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

Gibbon's  scathing  picture  of  what  Athens  was  a  hundred 
years  ago,  or  even  Byron's  prose  account  of  it  eighty 
years  ago  ;  when  we  learn  that  sixty  years  ago,  when  it 
became  a  capital,  it  had  only  300  houses,  and  a  mixed 
population — it  is  physically  certain  that  the  130,0x30 
inhabitants  of  Athens  and  the  Piraeus  must  be  mainly 
an  immigrant  people. 

.  The  fact  that  the  recrudescence  of  the  old  Attic  salt, 
even  in  its  peculiarities  and  foibles,  must  be  due  to  some 
intellectual  filiation  of  ideals  and  habits,  and  not  at  all 
to  race  inheritance,  makes  the  sight  of  the  re-Hellenisa- 
tion  of  Hellas  the  more  interesting  as  a  study.  If  we 
read  Byron's  melancholy  picture  of  Athens  and  the 
Athenians,  whilst  we  roam  in  the  bright  and  ambitious 
city  of  King  George  to-day,  we  may  note  one  of  the 
most  singular  transformations  that  modern  history  can 
show  us.  Where  the  poet  found  only  a  few  abject  slaves, 
we  may  now  see  one  of  the  most  busy  political  towns 
in  Europe.  To  see  pure  democracy,  as  described  by 
Aristophanes,  we  should  go,  not  to  New  York,  Paris,  or 
East  London,  but  to  Athens  ;  and  there  watch  Demos 
in  his  native  cradle,  under  the  sky  of  Athene,  and  in  full 
view  of  Propylaea  and  Pnyx,  listening  with  passionate 
keenness  to  his  favourite  orator,  who,  in  the  language  of 
Pericles  or  Cleon,  is  extolling  the  future  of  the  Hellenic 
idea.  It  may  be  that  in  its  indigenous  soil  the  art  of 
ochlocratic  Bunkum  has  developed  with  unusual  pro- 
fusion ;  and  perhaps  the  Pan-Hellenic  idea  has  given  rise 
to  nonsense  even  worse  than  that  of  the  Pan- Britannic 
or  Pan-Slavonic  idea.  But  the  habit  of  treating  the 
aspirations  of  an  ambitious  young  nation  with  super- 
cilious patronage,  and  of  ridiculing  their  really  wonderful 
material  progress,  is  not  reasonable  or  even  decent. 
The  extravagances  of  Hellenic  vanity  are  hardly  greater 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   ATHENS   '  321 

than  the  extravagances  of  national  vanity  in  many  parts 
of  the  Old  and  New  World.  And  the  progress  that  has 
been  made  by  Greece  in  sixty  years,  under  great  diffi- 
culties, and  with  very  narrow  resources,  is  a  fact  that 
cannot  be  denied. 

Greece  is  a  country  more  keenly  proud  and  more 
fiercely  jealous  of  her  memorials  of  the  past  than  any 
people  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  remnants  of  the 
great  age  are  all  that  she  has  to  recall  the  history  out  of 
which  her  renewed  existence  as  a  nation  is  built.  They 
are  to  Greece  her  Magna  Charta,  her  Statute  Book,  her 
Westminster  Abbey,  her  St.  Stephen's  in  one.  She  is 
making  sacrifices  to  recover,  preserve,  and  display  every 
fragment  of  ancient  art.  Her  Museums  and  National 
Collections  are  quite  as  well  kept  as  ours,  and  quite  as 
adequate  for  their  purpose.  They  fill  a  far  larger  part 
of  the  nation's  interest  and  .the  business  of  the  State 
than  do  ours.  They  are  quite  as  safe  as  those  of  Berlin, 
Paris,  or  Rome,  and  are  far  less  exposed  to  soot  and 
damp  than  those  of  London.  The  only  danger  that 
could  threaten  them  would  be  from  the  navy  of  some 
Western  power.  The  time  then  has  come,  on  grounds 
of  international  morality,  to  restore  the  sublime  frag- 
ments which  seventy  years  ago  an  English  ambassador 
tore  away  from  the  Parthenon.  English  literature  con- 
tains an  enduring  protest  against  this  Vandalism,  which 
Lord  Byron  denounced  as  '  the  last  poor  plunder  of  a 
bleeding  land,' — 

'  Curst  be  the  hour  when  from  their  isle  they  roved, 
And  once  again  thy  hapless  bosom  gored, 
And  snatch'd  thy  shrinking  gods  to  northern  climes  abhorred.' 

The  removal  of  these  stones  from  Athens  would  be 
impossible  in  our  age,  and  was  only  made  possible  by 

X 


322  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

their  happening  to  be  within  the  power  of  an  Oriental 
despot.  Their  acquisition  can  reflect  nothing  but  dis- 
honour on  our  name :  as  Byron  said,  '  the  honour  of 
England  is  not  advanced  by  plunder.'  But  the  conditions 
of  the  case  have  changed :  and  the  '  Elgin  marbles ' 
stand  on  a  footing  wholly  different  from  the  other 
treasures  that  our  Museums  possess.  These  collective 
works  of  art,  of  which  our  Museum  has  a  part,  still 
remain  in  situ  where  they  were  placed,  and  they  form 
part  of  the  very  structure  of  the  temple  which  still 
stands  there  as  a  majestic  ruin.  The  Greek  people  have 
raised  on  the  Acropolis  itself  a  national  museum,  where 
every  fragment  of  the  ancient  work  that  once  adorned 
it,  is  religiously  preserved.  The  collection  is  unique, 
incomparable,  of  inestimable  value,  and  is  constantly 
being  increased.  It  derives  its  peculiar  impress! veness 
from  the  fact  that  these  priceless  relics  still  remain 
on  the  sacred  citadel  of  Athene,  under  the  shadow  of 
the  mighty  temple  of  which  they  formed  part.  The 
Parthenon  gains  a  new  charm  by  their  presence  ;  whilst 
the  statues  gain  a  fresh  power  by  being  within  its  pre- 
cinct. Pheidias,  Ictinus,  Pericles,  acquire  each  a  new 
dignity  in  our  eyes,  as  we  contemplate  the  ruin  and  its 
adornments  on  the  ever-consecrated  spot  where  such 
amazing  genius  laboured  and  thought. 

We  go  to  our  own  Museum,  and  we  are  wont  to  plume 
ourselves  on  the  diplomacy  and  taste  of  the  eminent 
personage  who  secured  these  treasures.  We  say  they 
are  now  safe,  carefully  preserved,  and  accessible  to  every 
one.  Perhaps  it  was  wrong  to  steal  them,  but  now  that 
it  is  done,  it  cannot  be  mended.  In  the  meantime  the 
British  public  can  study  High  Art  at  its  leisure.  But 
there  is  something  above  High  Art,  and  that  is  national 
honour,  and  international  morality.  And  when,  in  the 


IMPRESSIONS   OF  ATHENS  323 

enthusiasm  of  a  first  visit  to  the  city  of  Plato,  Sophocles, 
and  Pheidias,  we  behold  the  empty  pediments  which  we 
have  wrecked,  and  the  blank  spaces  out  of  which  our 
national  representative  tore  metopes  and  frieze,  when 
we  see  the  terra-cotta  Caryatid,  which  is  forced  to  do 
duty  for  her  whom  we  have  ravished  from  the  temple 
of  Erechtheus — it  is  not  so  easy  to  repeat  the  robber 
sophism  :  having  plundered,  it  is  best  to  keep  the 
plunder.  One  day  the  conscience  of  England  will 
revive,  and  she  will  rejoice  to  restore  the  outraged 
emblems  of  Hellenic  art  to  the  glorious  sky,  where  only 
they  are  at  home,  on  that  immortal  rock,  and  beneath 
the  shadow  of  the  sublime  temple,  which  a  supreme 
genius  made  them  to  ennoble.  And  our  eloquent  dis- 
courses about  Art  will  gain  by  being  sweetened  with 
honesty  and  good  manners. 


CHAPTER    XI 

CONSTANTINOPLE  AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY1 

I.  Byzantine  History 

OF  all  the  cities  of  Europe  the  New  Rome  of  the 
Bosphorus,  in  its  power  over  the  imagination  of  men, 
can  yield  the  first  place  to  none  save  to  its  own  mother, 
the  Old  Rome  of  the  Tiber.  And  of  all  cities  of  the 
world  she  stands  foremost  in  beauty  of  situation,  in  the 
marvel  of  her  geographical  position,  as  the  eternal  link 
between  the  East  and  the  West.  We  may  almost  add 
that  she  is  foremost  in  the  vast  continuity  and  gorgeous 
multiplicity  of  her  historic  interests.  For  if  Constanti- 
nople can  present  us  with  nothing  that  can  vie  in 
sublimity  and  pathos  with  the  memories  of  Rome, 
Athens,  Jerusalem,  it  has  for  the  historic  mind  a  peculiar 
fascination  of  its  own,  in  the  enormous  persistence  of 
imperial  power  concentrated  under  varied  forms  in  one 
unique  spot  of  our  earthly  globe. 

Byzantium,  to  use  that  which  has  been  the  ordinary 
name  with  all  Greek  writers  from  Herodotus  down  to 
Paspates  in  our  own  day,  is  one  of  the  oldest  cities  of 
Europe :  historically  speaking,  if  we  neglect  mere  pre- 
historic legend,  little  younger  than  Athens  or  Rome. 
Like  them,  Byzantium  appears  to  have  been  founded  on 
a  pre-historic  fort.  Hardly  any  of  the  ancient  towns  of 

1  Fortnightly  Reviw,  April,  1894,  No.  328,  vol.  55. 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY        325 

Italy  and  Southern  Europe  can  show  so  authentic  and 
venerable  a  record.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
Byzantium  has  been  a  historic  city  for  some  2550  years  : 
during  the  whole  of  that  period,  with  no  real  break  in 
her  life,  it  has  been  the  scene  of  events  recorded  in  the 
annals  of  mankind  ;  it  has  been  fought  for  and  held  by 
men  famous  in  world  history,  it  has  played  a  substantive 
part  in  the  drama  of  civilisation.  So  singular  a  sequence 
of  historic  interest  can  hardly  be  claimed  for  any  city  in 
Europe,  except  for  Rome  herself. 

For  nearly  a  thousand  years  before  it  became  the 
capital  of  an  empire,  Byzantium  was  a  Greek  city  of 
much  importance,  the  prize  of  contending  nations,  and 
with  striking  prescience  even  then  chosen  out  by  philo- 
sophic historians  for  its  commanding  position  and  im- 
mense capabilities.  After  the  lapse  of  nearly  a  thousand 
years,  Byzantium  became  Constantinople,  the  centre  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  Since  then  it  has  been  the  capital 
city  of  an  empire  for  exactly  1564  years — and  that  in  a 
manner  and  for  a  period  such  as  no  other  imperial  city 
has  been  in  the  annals  of  civilised  man.  There  is  no 
actual  break ;  although,  for  the  dynasty  of  the  Palseologi, 
from  the  Latin  Empire  down  to  the  capture  by  the 
Ottomans,  the  empire  outside  the  capital  had  a  shrunken 
and  almost  phantom  dominion.  But  it  is  yet  true,  that 
for  1564  years  Constantinople  has  ever  been,  and  still  is, 
the  sole  regular  residence  of  Emperors  and  Sultans,  the 
sole  and  continuous  centre  of  civil  and  military  adminis- 
tration, the  supreme  court  of  law  and  justice,  and  the 
official  centre  of  the  imperial  religion. 

During  all  this  period,  the  life  of  the  empire  has  been 
concentrated  in  that  most  wonderful  peninsula,  as  its  heart 
and  its  head.  It  has  been  concentrated  for  a  far  longer 
period,  and  in  a  more  definite  way,  than  even  it  was  in 


326  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

the  original  Seven  Hills  ;  for  Rome  herself  was  the  local 
seat  of  empire  for  scarcely  four  centuries,  and  even  for 
that  in  an  intermittent  form  ;  and  vast  as  has  been  the 
continuity  of  the  Roman  Church  for  at  least  thirteen 
centuries,  its  life,  and  even  its  official  government,  have 
had  many  seats  and  continual  movements.  But  from 
the  days  of  Constantine,  Constantinople  has  been,  both 
in  the  temporal  and  spiritual  domains,  the  centre, 
the  home,  the  palladium  of  the  empire  of  the  East. 
For  fifteen  centuries  the  Lord  of  Constantinople  has 
never  ceased  to  be  the  Lord  of  the  contiguous 
East ;  and,  whilst  sea  and  rock  hold  in  their  ac- 
customed places,  the  Lord  of  Constantinople  must 
continue  to  be  Lord  of  South-Eastern  Europe  and  of 
North- Western  Asia. 

This  continuity  and  concentration  of  imperial  rule  in 
an  imperial  city  have  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind. Rome  was  the  local  centre  of  empire  for  barely 
four  centuries,  and  for  sixteen  centuries  she  has  wholly 
lost  that  claim.  The  royal  cities  that  once  flourished  in 
the  valleys  of  the  Ganges,  the  Euphrates,  or  the  Nile, 
were  all  abandoned  after  some  centuries  of  splendour, 
and  have  long  lost  their  imperial  rank.  Memphis, 
Babylon,  Tyre,  Carthage,  Alexandria,  Syracuse,  Athens, 
had  periods  of  glory,  but  no  great  continuity  of  empire. 
London  and  Paris  have  been  great  capitals  for  at  most 
a  few  centuries ;  and  Madrid,  Berlin,  Vienna,  and  St. 
Petersburg  are  things  of  yesterday  in  the  long  roll  of 
human  civilisation.  There  is  but  one  city  of  the  world 
of  which  it  can  be  said  that,  for  fifteen  centuries  and  a 
half,  it  has  been  the  continuous  seat  of  empire,  under  all 
the  changes  of  race,  institutions,  customs,  and  religion. 
And  this  may  be  ultimately  traced  to  its  incomparable 
physical  and  geographical  capabilities. 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY        327 

Mere  duration  of  imperial  power  and  variety  of  his- 
torical interest  are  indeed  far  different  from  true  greatness 
or  national  dignity.  But  as  an  object  of  the  historical 
imagination,  the  richness  of  the  record,  in  the  local 
annals  of  some  world-famous  spot,  cannot  fail  to  kindle 
our  thoughts.  History,  alas  !  is  not  the  record  of  pure 
virtue  and  peaceful  happiness  :  it  is  the  record  of  deeds 
big  with  fate  to  races  of  men,  of  passions,  crimes,  follies, 
heroisms,  and  martyrdoms  in  the  mysterious  labyrinth 
of  human  destiny.  The  stage  whereon,  over  so  vast  a 
period  of  man's  memory,  ten  thousand  of  such  tragedies 
have  been  enacted,  holds  with  a  spell  the  mind  of  every 
man  who  is  in  sympathy  with  human  nature,  and 
who  loves  to  meditate  on  the  problems  of  human 
progress. 

History  and  European  opinion  have  been  until  lately 
most  unjust  to  the  Byzantine  empire,  whether  in  its 
Roman,  its  Greek,  or  in  its  Ottoman  form.  By  a  singular 
fatality  its  annals  and  its  true  place  have  been  grossly  mis- 
understood. Foreign  scholars,  German,  French,  Russian, 
and  Greek,  have  done  much  in  recent  years  to  repair  this 
error ;  and  English  historians,  though  late  in  the  field, 
are  beginning  to  atone  for  neglect  in  the  past.  Finlay 
worthily  led  the  way,  in  spite  of  sympathies  and  anti- 
pathies which  almost  incapacitate  an  historian  from  fully 
grasping  Byzantine  history ;  Professor  Freeman  struck 
the  true  note  in  some  of  his  most  weighty  and  pregnant 
pieces,  perhaps  the  most  original  and  brilliant  of  his 
essays  ;  and  now  Professor  Bury,  of  Dublin,  has  under- 
taken the  task  of  casting  into  a  scientific  and  systematic 
history  those  wonderful  narratives  of  which  Gibbon  gave 
us  detached  and  superb  sketches,  albeit  with  limited 
resources  and  incomplete  knowledge.  Edwin  Pears,  in 
a  fine  monograph,  has  given  us  very  much  more  than  the 


328  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

history  of  the  Fourth  Crusade.1  And  the  incessant 
labours  of  foreign  scholars  are  beginning  to  filter  even 
into  the  ideas  of  the  general  reader.  Russian  and  Greek 
monasteries  have  preserved  unknown  and  precious 
chronicles ;  and  Armenian,  Saracen,  and  Persian  manu- 
scripts have  lately  been  added  to  our  annals.  The 
terrible  Corpus  of  Byzantine  histories  becomes  less  heart- 
breaking in  its  dryness  and  its  affectation,  with  all  the 
light  that  modern  scholarship  has  thrown  upon  that 
record  of  romantic  and  tremendous  events,  too  often 
told  by  official  annalists  with  pedantic  dulness  and  cold- 
blooded commonplace.  Krause,  Hopf,  Heyd,  Gfrorer, 
in  Germany ;  Sabatier,  Rambaud,  Schlumberger,  Dra- 
peyron,  Bayet,  in  France  ;  Byzantios,  and  Paspates,  in 
Greece,  have  given  a  new  life  to  this  vast  repertory  of  a 
thousand  years  of  varying  fortune.2 

At  the  same  time,  the  local  archaeology  of  Constanti- 
nople has  received  a  new  impulse.  The  political  and 
economic  changes  which  resulted  from  the  course  of 
events,  from  the  Crimean  War  of  1853  to  the  Treaty  of 
San  Stefano  in  1878,  have  opened  Constantinople  much 
as  Japan  was  opened  thirty  years  ago.  European 
scholars  and  resident  Greeks  have  been  enabled  to  study 
the  remains  ;  the  Sultan  has  formed  a  most  interesting 
museum  under  Hamdi  Bey,  a  Turkish  archaeologist ;  and 

1  History  of  Greece,  from  146  B.C.  to  A.D.  1864,  by  George  Finlay,  ed. 
by  H.  F.  Tozer,  7  vols.  ;  Historical  Essays,  by  E.  A.  Freeman,  third  series, 
1879;  The  Later  Roman  Empire,  from  395  A.D.  to  800  A. D.,  by  J.  B. 
Bury,  1'rin.  Coll.  Dub.,  2  vols.,  1889 ;  '1  he  Fall  of  Constantinople  in  the 
Fourth  Crusade,  by  Ed* in  Fears,  LL.D.,  1885;  The  History  of  tht 
Byzantine  Empire,  by  C.  Oman,  1893. 

3  Sabatier,  Monnaies  Byzantines,  1862  ;  Rambaud,  V Empire  Grec  au 
Xme.  Siecle,  1870;  Drapeyron,  L'Empereur  Heraclius,  1869;  Schlum- 
berger, Un  Empereur  Byzantin,  1890  ;  Krause,  Die  Byzantiner  des 
Mittelalters,  1869  ;  Gfrorer,  Byzanlinische  Geschichten,  1872-77. 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY        329 

Dr.  Paspates,  a  Greek  antiquarian,  has  attempted,  in  the 
cuttings  and  works  of  the  new  railway,  almost  wholly 
to  reconstruct  Byzantine  topography.  The  vague  and 
somewhat  traditional  localisation  repeated  by  Banduri, 
Ducange,  Gyllius,  Busbecq,  and  the  rest,  has  now  been 
corrected  by  scientific  inspection  of  ruins  and  partial 
excavation.  The  ingenious  labours  of  Labarte,  Salzen- 
berg,  Schlumberger,  Bayet,  Mordtmann,  Riant,  and 
others,1  have  been  tested  by  some  new  excavations 
on  the  spot.  No  one  could  well  deal  with  Byzan- 
tine antiquities  without  examining  the  works  of  the  late 
Dr.  Paspates,  especially  of  the  Byzantine  Palaces,  which 
is  now  accessible  to  the  English  reader  in  the  new 
translation  of  Mr.  Metcalfe  (1893). 

We  have  all  been  unjust  to  this  Byzantine  empire  ; 
and  its  restoration  to  its  true  place  in  the  story  of  human 
civilisation  is  beyond  doubt  the  great  lacuna  of  our 
current  histories.  What  they  tell  us  is  mainly  the  story 
of  its  last  four  hundred  years — when  the  Eastern  empire 
was  dying  under  the  mortal  blows  inflicted  on  it  as  it 
stood  between  the  fanaticism  of  the  East  and  the  jeal- 
ousy of  the  West.  Of  the  seven  centuries  from  Theo- 
dosius  to  the  Crusades  we  hear  little  save  Palace  intrigues, 
though  these  years  were  the  true  years  of  glory  in  Byzan- 
tine history.  This  was  the  period  when  she  handed 
down,  and  handed  down  alone,  the  ancient  world  to 
the  modern  ;  when  Constantinople  was  the  greatest  and 

1  Banduri,  Imperium  Orientate,  1711,  2  vols.  fol.  ;  Ducange,  Con- 
stantinopolis  Christiana ;  Gyllius,  De  Topogr.  Constantin.  ;  Busbecq, 
Letters,  tr.  by  Forster  and  Daniel,  2  vols.,  1881  ;  Salzenberg,  Alt-Christ- 
liche  Baudenkmale,  1854,  fol.  ;  Labarte,  Le  Palais  Imperial  de  Con- 
stantinople, 410,  1861  ;  Paspates,  Evfavrivai  MeXercu,  1877  ;  Bv?avru>& 
'AvaKTOpa,  1885  ;  IIoXto/DKta  /ecu  dXwcrts,  1890 ;  Professor  van  Millingen,  in 
Murray's  Handbook,  new  ed.,  1893;  Byzantios,  KuvaravTivoviroXis,  1851-59, 
3  vols. 


330  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

most  civilised  city  in  Europe,  the  last  refuge  of  law,  arts, 
and  learning,  the  precursor  of  the  Crusades  in  defending 
Christian  civilisation  by  four  centuries.  Before  the 
Crusades  were  undertaken  by  Europe,  the  Eastern 
empire  was  falling  into  corruption  and  decay.  But 
down  to  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century,  more  or 
less  continuously  from  the  opening  of  the  seventh,  the 
history  of  the  Eastern  Romans  may  honourably  com- 
pare with  the  history  of  Western  Europe,  whilst  in  cer- 
tain essential  elements  of  civilisation,  they  stood  not 
merely  first  in  Europe,  but  practically  alone.  If  Chos- 
roes,  or  Muaviah,  or  Haroun,  or  Crumn,  had  succeeded 
in  blotting  out  the  empire  of  the  Bosphorus,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  from  whence  we  should  have  been  able 
to  recover  either  Roman  law,  or  Hellenic  art,  or  ancient 
poetry  and  learning,  or  the  complex  art  of  organised 
government,  or  the  traditions  and  manufactures  of  cul- 
tured civilisation.  At  any  rate,  the  whole  history  of 
mankind  would  have  taken  a  different  course. 

Neither  under  Roman,  Greek,  or  Ottoman  has  the 
empire  been,  except  at  intervals,  the  abyss  of  corrup- 
tion, servility,  and  vice  that  Western  prejudice  has  too 
long  imagined.  Horrors,  follies,  meanness,  and  pedantry 
abound  ;  but  there  is  still  a  record  rich  in  heroism,  in- 
tellectual energy,  courage,  skill,  and  perseverance,  which 
are  as  memorable  as  any  in  the  world.  Neither  the 
intellect,  nor  the  art,  nor  the  religion  are  those  of  Western 
Europe  ;  nor  have  we  there  the  story  of  a  great  people, 
or  a  purifying  Church,  of  a  profound  philosophy,  or  a 
progressive  civilisation.  Constantinople  is,  and  always 
has  been,  as  much  Eastern  as  Western — yet  with  much 
that  is  neither  of  the  East  nor  of  the  West — but  special 
to  itself.  It  is  a  type  of  Conservatism,  of  persistency 
and  constancy  unparalleled,  amidst  change,  decay,  and 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS  AN    HISTORIC   CITY        331 

defeat.  This  miraculous  longevity  and  recuperative  power 
seem  to  go  counter  to  all  the  lessons  of  Western  Europe; 
or  in  the  West  they  are  to  be  matched  only  by  the 
recuperative  power  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  city  and 
the  Church,  which  date  from  Constantine,  have  both  in 
these  fifteen  centuries  shown  a  strange  power  of  recovery 
from  mortal  maladies  and  hopeless  difficulties.  But 
the  recovery  of  temporal  dominion  is  always  more  rare 
than  the  revival  of  spiritual  ideas.  And  in  recuperative 
energy  and  tenacity  of  life,  the  empire  of  the  Bosphorus, 
from  Constantine  to  Abdul  Hamid,  is  one  long  paradox. 
The  continuity  of  empire  in  Constantinople  suffered, 
it  is  true,  a  tremendous  breach  in  dynasty,  in  race,  and 
in  religion,  by  the  conquest  of  the  Turks  ;  and,  if  it  were 
a  Christian,  and  Roman,  or  Latin,  or  Greek  empire  for 
1 123  years,  it  has  been  a  Moslem  and  Ottoman  empire  for 
441  years.  To  many  historians  these  441  years  have  been 
a  period  of  Babylonish  captivity  for  the  chosen  people. 
But  those  who  are  not  especially  Philhellene  or  Philortho- 
dox,  in  any  absolute  sense,  will  view  this  great  problem 
without  race  or  sectarian  animosities.  Before  the  im- 
partial judgment- seat  of  history  the  lesson  of  the  past 
lies  in  the  unfolding  of  genius  in  government  and  in 
war,  in  organising  nations,  and  in  moulding  their 
destinies  ;  and  where  these  great  capacities  exist,  there 
is  no  room  to  indulge  the  prejudices  of  a  partisan.  The 
two  centuries  of  Stamboul  which  follow  the  conquest  of 
Mohammed  the  Second,  in  1453,  are  greatly  superior  in 
interest  and  in  teaching  to  the  two  centuries  of  Byzan- 
tine empire  which  precede  it,  and  the  miserable  tale  of 
the  Latin  usurpation.  Nor  has  the  whole  Ottoman  rule 
of  four  centuries  and  a  half  been  less  brilliant,  less  rich  in 
great  intellects  and  great  characters,  than  the  Byzantine 
empire  from  the  time  of  the  Crusades  till  its  fall — perhaps 


332  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

even  not  more  oppressive  to  its  subjects,  nor  more 
antagonistic  to  moral  and  social  progress.  The  marvel- 
lous city  that  Constantine  created  in  330  A.D.  has  been 
ever  since  that  day  the  effective  seat  of  such  government 
as  the  Eastern  regions  around  it  could  maintain,  of  such 
civilisation  as  they  could  evolve,  and  of  such  religious 
union  as  -they  were  able  to  receive.  That  empire,  that 
type  of  society,  seem  preparing  to-day  for  an  ultimate 
withdrawal  into  Asia.  But  with  such  a  record  of  per- 
sistence and  revival,  such  tenacity  of  hold  on  a  sacred 
and  imperial  centre,  few  can  forecast  the  issue  with 
confidence.  And  that  future  is  assuredly  amongst  the 
most  fascinating  enigmas  which  can  engage  the  medita- 
tions of  thinking  men. 

It  is  an  acute  remark  of  the  late  Professor  Freeman 
that  the  history  of  the  empire  is  the  history  of  the 
capital.  The  imperial,  religious,  legal,  and  commercial 
energy  of  the  Eastern  empire  has  always  centred  in 
Constantinople,  by  whomsoever  held,  in  a  way  that  can 
hardly  be  paralleled  in  European  history.  The  Italian 
successors  of  Julius  and  Augustus  for  the  most  part 
spent  their  lives  and  carried  on  their  government  very 
largely,  and  at  last  almost  wholly,  away  from  Rome. 
Neither  had  the  Western  Emperors,  nor  the  chiefs  of 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  any  permanent  and  continu- 
ous seat.  The  history  of  England  and  that  of  France 
are  associated  with  many  historic  towns  and  many  royal 
residences  far  from  London  and  from  Paris.  Nor  do  the 
histories  of  Spain,  Italy,  or  Germany,  offer  us  any  con- 
stant capital  or  any  single  centre  of  government,  religion, 
law,  commerce,  and  art.  But  of  the  nearly  one  hundred 
sovereigns  of  the  Eastern  empire,  and  of  the  twenty- 
eight  Caliphs  who  have  succeeded  them  in  Byzantium, 
during  that  long  epoch  of  1 564  years,  from  the  day  of 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY        333 

its  foundation,  Constantinople  has  been  the  uniform 
residence  of  the  sovereign,  except  when  on  actual  cam- 
paign in  time  of  war  or  on  some  imperial  progress  ;  and 
in  peace  and  in  war  under  all  dynasties,  races,  and 
creeds,  it  has  never  ceased  to  be  the  seat  of  official 
government,  the  supreme  tribunal,  and  the  metropolis  of 
the  religious  system. 

From  the  age  of  Theodosius  down  to  the  opening  of 
the  Crusades — a  period  of  seven  centuries — whilst  Rome 
itself  and  every  ancient  city  in  Europe  was  stormed, 
sacked,  burnt,  more  or  less  abandoned,  and  almost 
blotted  out  by  a  succession  of  invaders,  Constantinople 
remained  untouched,  impregnable,  never  decayed,  never 
abandoned — always  the  most  populous,  the  most  wealthy, 
the  most  cultivated,  the  most  artistic  city  in  Europe — 
always  the  seat  of  a  great  empire,  the  refuge  of  those 
who  sought  peace  and  protection  for  their  culture  or 
their  wealth,  a  busy  centre  of  a  vast  commerce,  the  one 
home  of  ancient  art,  the  one  school  of  ancient  law  and 
learning  left  undespoiled  and  undeserted.  From  the 
eighth  century  to  the  thirteenth  a  succession  of  travellers 
have  described  its  size,  wealth,  and  magnificence.1  In 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  Jew  Benjamin  of 
Tudela,  coming  from  Spain  to  Palestine,  declares  that 
'  these  riches  and  buildings  are  equalled  nowhere  in  the 
world ' ;  '  that  merchants  resort  thither  from  all  parts  of 
the  world.'  From  about  the  eleventh  century  the  down- 
fall of  the  city  began.  It  was  ruined  by  the  political 
jealousy  of  the  Western  empire,  by  the  religious  hostility 
of  the  Roman  Church,  and  by  the  commercial  rivalry  of 

1  Early  Travels  in  Palestine,  ed.  T.  Wright,  1868;  Krause,  Die 
Byzantiner  des  Mittelalters,  1869;  Heyd,  Levantehandel,  1879;  French 
ed.  1885;  Riant,  Exuvice  sacra  Constant.,  1877;  Hopf,  Chroniques 
Greco- Romanes  inedites,  1873. 


334  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

the  Italian  republics.  Placed  between  these  irreconcil- 
able enemies  on  the  west,  the  incessant  attacks  of  the 
Slavonic  races  on  the  north,  and  the  aspiring  fanaticism 
of  Musulman  races  from  the  east  and  the  south,  the 
Byzantine  empire  slowly  bled  to  death,  and  its  capital 
became,  for  some  three  centuries,  little  more  than  a 
besieged  fortress — filled  with  a  helpless  population  and 
vast  treasures  and  relics  it  could  no  longer  protect. 

But  whether  the  empire  was  in  glory  or  in  decay,  into 
whatever  race  it  passed,  and  whatever  was  the  official 
creed,  Constantinople  never  failed  to  attract  to  itself 
whatever  of  genius  and  ambition  the  Eastern  empire 
contained,  nor  did  it  ever  cease,  nor  has  it  ceased,  to  be 
a  great  mart  of  commerce,  and  clearing-house  of  all 
that  the  East  and  the  West  desired  to  exchange.  It  is 
still  to  the  Greek  priest,  as  it  is  to  the  Musulman  imam, 
what  Rome  is  to  the  Catholic.  And  to  the  Greek  from 
Alexandria  to  New  York  it  is  still  what  Rome  is  to  the 
Italian,  and  what  Paris  is  to  the  Frenchman.  In  a  sense, 
it  is  almost  still  the  traditional  metropolis  of  the  Ortho- 
dox Greek,  of  the  Armenian,  and  almost  of  the  Levan- 
tine Jew,  as  well  as  of  the  Moslem.  Its  history  is  the 
history  of  the  Balkan  peninsula,  for  its  twenty  famous 
sieges  have  been  the  turning-points  in  the  rise  and  fall 
of  the  empire.  The  inner  history  of  the  thrones  of  the 
East  has  been  uniformly  transacted  within  those  walls 
and  upon  the  buried  stones  and  fragments  whereon  we 
may  still  stand  to-day  and  ponder  on  the  vicissitudes  of 
fifteen  centuries  and  a  half. 

1 1.   Topographical  Conditions 

A  large  part  of  this  strange  radiation  of  Eastern 
history  from  the  new  Eternal  City  is  unquestionably 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN   HISTORIC   CITY        335 

due  to  its  unique  local  conditions.  From  Herodotus 
and  Polybius  down  to  Gibbon  and  Freeman,  historians, 
ancient  and  modern,  have  expatiated  on  the  unrivalled 
situation  of  Byzantium  on  the  Bosphorus.  There  is  no 
other  so  apt  to  become  the  seat  of  a  great  city  on  the 
habitable  globe.  Standing  on  the  extreme  easternmost 
point  of  the  Balkan  peninsula,  it  is  within  easy  voyage 
of  the  entire  coast-line  of  Asia  Minor  on  its  northern, 
western,  and  southern  faces.  As  an  early  traveller 
pointed  out,  Constantinople  '  is  a  city  which  Nature 
herself  has  designed  to  be  the  mistress  of  the  world. 
It  stands  in  Europe,  looks  upon  Asia,  and  is  within 
reach  by  sea  of  Egypt  and  the  Levant  on  the  south — 
and  of  the  Black  Sea  and  its  European  and  Asiatic 
shores  on  the  north.' l  Something  of  the  kind  might  be 
said  for  such  cities  as  Corinth,  or  Thessalonica,  Smyrna, 
or  Athens  ;  but  the  extraordinary  feature  of  Byzan- 
tium, which  confers  on  it  so  peculiar  a  power  of  defence 
and  attack  is  this— that  whilst  having  ample  and  secure 
roadsteads  and  ports  all  round  it,  it  has  both  on  the 
north  and  the  south,  a  long,  narrow,  but  navigable  sea 
channel,  of  such  a  kind  that,  in  ancient  or  in  modern 
warfare,  it  can  be  made  impregnable  against  any  invad- 
ing fleet. 

Constantinople  was  thus  protected  by  two  marine 
gates  which  could  be  absolutely  closed  to  any  hostile  ship, 
whether  coming  from  the  Black  Sea  or  from  the  ^Egean, 
but  which  can  be  instantly  opened  to  its  own  or  any 
friendly  ship  coming  or  going  over  the  whole  area  of 
the  Euxine  or  the  Mediterranean.  Whilst  thus  im- 
pregnably  defended  by  sea,  she  could  bar  invasion  by 
land  by  her  vast  rampart  running  from  sea  to  sea,  and 

1  Busbecq's  Letters,  translated  by  Forster  and  Daniel,  1881,  vol.  i. 
p.  123. 


336  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

not  more  than  four  miles  in  length.  And  at  a  distance 
of  some  thirty  miles  further  west,  a  second  wall,  twenty 
feet  wide  and  about  forty  miles  long,  shut  off  from  north 
and  west  the  main  peninsula  and  ran  from  the  Propontis 
to  the  Euxine.  Constantinople  in  ancient  times  thus 
held  what,  with  an  adequate  sea  and  land  force,  was  the 
strongest  defensive  position  in  Europe,  if  not  in  the 
world.  For  by  sea  she  could  bar  all  approach  from 
east,  north,  or  south  ;  whilst  on  the  west,  the  only  land- 
ward approach,  she  was  protected  by  a  double  rampart, 
placed  upon  a  double  peninsula,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
natural  bulwark  of  the  Balkan  mountains. 

To  this  incomparable  position  of  security  we  must 
add  that,  whilst  one  side  of  the  city  faces  an  inland  sea 
of  wonderful  beauty,  which  is  rather  a  lake  than  a  sea, 
another  side  of  the  city  looks  across  the  Bosphorus  to 
Asia ;  on  the  third  side  of  the  city  is  her  own  secure 
port  of  the  Golden  Horn,  about  four  miles  long  and 
more  than  half  a  mile  wide.  Here  a  thousand  ships 
can  ride  in  safety,  and  the  channel  is  so  deep  that  in 
places  the  biggest  vessels  can  lie  beside  the  quays.  The 
country  round  is  diversified  with  hills,  valleys,  and 
tableland,  broken  by  bays  and  gulfs,  and  crowned  with 
distant  mountains.  The  Propontis  and  its  shores  teem 
with  fish,  fruit,  vines,  woods,  and  marbles,  whilst  in  the 
far  horizon  the  snowy  folds  of  the  Bithynian  Olympus 
float  as  a  dim  but  radiant  vision  in  the  distance. 

The  extension  of  modern  artillery  has  reduced  and 
almost  destroyed  the  defensive  capacities  of  the  city  on 
the  landward.  But  from  the  time  of  Xerxes  until  the 
present  century,  its  power  of  defence  was  almost  perfect 
so  long  as  Byzantium  could  command  the  sea.  She 
possessed  nearly  all  the  advantages  of  an  island  ;  but  of 
an  island  placed  in  a  sheltered  island  sea,  an  island 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN   HISTORIC   CITY        337 

from  which  rich  districts  both  of  Asia  and  Europe  could 
be  instantly  reached  in  open  boats,  or  by  a  few  hours' 
sail  in  any  kind  of  ship.  A  city,  having  magnificent  har- 
bours and  roadsteads  and  abundant  waterways  in  every 
direction,  had  all  the  peculiar  features  which  have  gone 
to  create  the  power  of  Syracuse,  Alexandria,  Venice, 
Amsterdam,  London,  or  New  York.  But  Byzantium 
had  this  additional  security — that,  with  all  the  facilities 
of  an  island,  she  could  close  her  marine  gates  against 
any  hostile  fleet  and  forbid  their  approach  within  sight. 
Tyre,  Carthage,  Athens,  Syracuse,  Alexandria — we  may 
say  all  famous  seaports  throughout  the  Mediterranean 
(except  Venice,  which  lay  safe  in  her  lagoons),  were 
exposed  to  a  hostile  fleet ;  and  all  of  them  have  been 
more  than  once  invested  by  invaders  from  the  sea.  But 
so  long  as  Byzantium  had  forces  enough  at  sea  to  close 
the  gate  of  the  Bosphorus  and  also  that  of  the  Helles- 
pont, she  was  unassailable  by  any  hostile  fleet.  And  so 
long  as  she  had  forces  enough  on  land  to  man  the  long 
wall  across  the  great  peninsula,  and  also  to  defend  her 
great  inner  fortifications  across  the  smaller  peninsula, 
she  was  impregnable  to  any  invading  army. 

It  would  be  unwise  in  a  civilian  to  express  any 
opinion  of  his  own  on  the  very  important  problem  of 
the  degree  in  which  modern  appliances  of  war  have 
deprived  Constantinople  of  her  peculiar  powers  of  de- 
fence. We  are  told  that,  so  far  as  the  closing  of  the 
Bosphorus  and  the  Hellespont  extend,  the  resources 
of  the  artillerist  and  the  submarine  engineer  have 
greatly  increased  their  defensive  capacity.  Constanti- 
nople is,  of  course,  no  longer  safe  from  an  enemy  posted 
on  the  heights,  either  above  Pera,  Scutari,  or  Eyub;  and 
obviously  her  ancient  walls  and  fortification  are  useless. 
But  with  first-class  forts  to  protect  both  Scutari  and 

Y 


338  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

Pera,  and  also  the  heights  to  the  west  of  the  city— 
which  together  might  require  some  four  complete  corps 
a  armies — and  with  a  first-class  fleet  in  the  Marmora, 
Constantinople  would,  even  to-day,  be  far  stronger  for 
defence  than  any  existing  capital  in  Europe,  perhaps 
stronger  than  any  great  city  in  the  world. 

The  peculiar  position  of  Byzantium  was  alike  fitted 
for  offence  or  for  defence.  It  was  essentially  a  maritime 
position,  the  full  resources  of  which  could  only  be  used 
by  a  power  strong  at  sea.  If  it  issued  northwards, 
through  its  gate  on  the  Bosphorus,  it  could  send  a  fleet 
to  any  point  of  the  Black  Sea — a  vast  expanse  of 
172,000  square  miles,  having  one  of  the  greatest  drain- 
age areas  in  the  world.  Thus,  in  a  few  days,  armies 
and  munitions  could  be  carried  to  the  mouths  either  of 
the  Danube,  the  Dnieper,  or  the  Don,  to  the  shores  of 
the  Crimea,  or  else  eastward  to  the  foot  of  the  Caucasus, 
or  to  any  point  on  the  north  coast  of  Asia  Minor. 
If  it  issued  south  through  the  Propontis  and  the 
Hellespont,  a  few  days  would  carry  its  armies  to  the 
teeming  shores  of  Bithynia,  or  to  the  rich  coasts  and 
islands  of  the  ./Egean  Sea,  or  to  Greece,  or  to  any  point 
on  the  western  or  the  southern  coast  of  Asia  Minor. 
And  a  few  days  more  would  bring  its  fleets  to  the  coast 
of  Syria,  or  of  Egypt,  or  to  Italy,  Spain,  Africa,  and  the 
Western  Mediterranean.  Thus,  the  largest  army  could 
be  safely  transported  in  a  few  days,  so  as  to  descend  at 
will  upon  the  vast  plains  of  Southern  Russia,  or  into  the 
heart  of  Central  Asia,  within  a  short  march  of  the  head 
waters  of  the  Euphrates — or  they  might  descend  south- 
wards to  the  gates  of  Syria,  near  Issus,  or  else  to  the 
mouths  of  the  Nile,  or  to  the  islands  and  bays  of  Greece 
or  Italy. 

And  these  wide  alternatives  in  objective  point  could 


CONSTANTINOPLE  AS   AN    HISTORIC  CITY        339 

be  kept  for  ultimate  decision  unknown  to  an  enemy  up 
to  the  last  moment.  When  the  great  Heraclius,  in  622, 
opened  his  memorable  war  with  Chosroes,  which  ended 
in  the  ruin  of  the  Persian  dynasty,  no  man  in  either 
host  knew  till  the  hour  of  his  sailing  whether  the 
Byzantine  hero  intended  to  descend  upon  Armenia 
by  the  Euxine,  or  upon  Syria  by  the  Gulf  of  Issus. 
And  until  they  issued  from  the  Hellespont  into  the 
JEgean,  the  Emperor's  army  and  fleet  wrere  absolutely 
protected  not  only  from  molestation,  but  even  from 
observation.  To  a  power  which  commanded  the  sea 
and  had  ample  supplies  of  troopships,  Constantinople 
combined  the  maximum  power  of  defence  with  the 
maximum  range  of  attack.  And  this  extraordinary 
combination  she  will  retain  in  the  future  in  competent 
hands. 

That  wonderfully  rapid  and  mobile  force,  which  an 
eminent  American  expert  has  named  the  '  Sea  Power/ 
the  power  discovered  by  Cromwell  and  Blake,  of  which 
England  is  still  the  great  example  and  mistress,  was 
placed  by  the  founders  of  Byzantium  in  that  spot  of 
earth  which,  at  any  rate  in  its  anciently-peopled  dis- 
tricts, combined  the  greatest  resources.  Byzantium, 
from  the  days  of  the  Persian  and  the  Peloponnesian  wars, 
had  always  been  a  prize  to  be  coveted  by  a  naval  power. 
From  the  time  of  Constantine  down  to  the  Crusades,  or 
for  nearly  eight  centuries,  the  rulers  of  Constantinople 
could  usually  command  large  and  well-manned  fleets. 
And  this  was  enough  to  account  for  her  imperial  place 
in  history.  As  an  imperial  city  she  must  rise,  decline, 
or  fall,  by  her  naval  strength.  She  fell  before  the 
Crusaders  in  a  naval  attack  ;  and  she  was  crippled  to  a 
great  extent  by  the  naval  attack  of  Mohammed  the 
Conqueror.  During  the  zenith  of  the  Moslem  Conquest, 


34°  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

she  was  great  by  sea.  Her  decline  in  this  century  has 
been  far  greater  on  sea  than  on  land.  When  her  fleet 
was  shattered  at  Sinope,  in  1853,  tne  end  was  not  far 
off.  And  when  to-day  we  see  in  the  Golden  Horn  the 
hulls  of  her  ironclads  moored  motionless,  and  they  say, 
unable  to  move,  men  know  that  Stamboul  is  no  longer 
the  queen  of  the  Levant. 

As  a  maritime  city,  also,  Constantinople  presents  this 
striking  problem.  For  fifteen  centuries,  with  moderate 
intervals,  this  city  of  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Propontis 
has  held  imperial  rule.  No  other  seaport  city,  either  in 
the  ancient  or  in  the  modern  world,  has  ever  maintained 
an  empire  for  a  period  approaching  to  this  in  length. 
Tyre,  Carthage,  Athens,  Alexandria,  Venice,  Genoa, 
Amsterdam,  have  held  proud  dependencies  by  their 
fleets  for  a  space,  but  for  rarely  more  than  a  few 
generations  or  centuries.  The  supremacy  of  the  seas, 
of  which  Englishmen  boast,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
had  more  than  two  centuries  of  trial.  The  city  of  the 
Bosphorus  has  been  tried  by  fifteen  centuries  of  fierce 
rivalry  and  obstinate  war ;  and  for  long  periods  together 
she  saw  powerful  enemies  permanently  encamped  almost 
within  sight  of  her  towers.  Yet  she  still  commands  the 
gates  of  the  Euxine  and  the  Hellespont,  just  as  Hero- 
dotus and  Polybius  tell  us  that  she  did  two  thousand 
years  ago.  Nor  can  any  man  who  has  studied  that 
marvellous  peninsula  fail  to  see  that,  so  soon  as  Con- 
stantinople again  falls  into  the  hands  of  a  great  naval 
power,  she  must  recover  her  paramount  control  over 
the  whole  shore  of  South-Eastern  Europe  and  North- 
Western  Asia. 

Herodotus  tells  us  how  Darius'  general,  in  the  sixth 
century  B.C.,  judged  its  position,  in  the  well-known 
saying  that  Chalcedon,  the  city  on  the  Asiatic  shore 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY        341 

opposite,  must  have  been  founded  by  blind  men,  for 
they  overlooked  the  superior  situation  on  which 
Byzantium  was  soon  after  placed.  Thucydides  records 
the  part  played  by  the  city  in  the  Peloponnesian  war ; 
and  Polybius,  the  scientific  historian  of  the  second 
century  B.C.,  describes  it  with  singular  insight.  '  Of  all 
cities  in  the  world,'  he  says,  '  it  is  the  most  happy  in  its 
position  on  the  sea  ;  being  not  only  secure  on  that  side 
from  all  enemies,  but  possessed  of  the  means  of  obtain- 
ing every  kind  of  necessaries  in  the  greatest  plenty.' 
And  he  enlarges  on  its  extraordinary  command  of  the 
commercial  route  from  the  Euxine  to  the  Mediterranean. 
He  explains  the  disadvantages  of  its  position  on  the 
land  side,  and  the  reasons  which  hindered  Byzantium 
from  becoming  a  commanding  city  in  Greece.  The 
main  reason  was  the  proximity  of  the  barbarous  and 
irrepressible  Thracians ;  for  the  old  Byzantium  was 
never  strong  enough  to  wall  in  and  defend  the  whole 
peninsula  by  the  wall  of  Anastasius,  nor  was  it  rich 
enough  to  maintain  such  an  army  as  would  overawe  the 
tribes  of  the  Balkan. 

No  doubt  the  founders  of  Chalcedon  on  the  Asian 
side  were  not  blind,  but  they  feared  the  Thracians  of 
the  European  side,  and  were  not  able  to  dispossess 
the  tribe  settled  on  the  peninsula.  But  a  problem 
arises.  Why,  if  the  situation  -of  Byzantium  were  so  pre- 
dominant, did  it  remain  for  a  thousand  years  a  second- 
class  commercial  city  of  Greece  ?  and  then,  why,  in  the 
fourth  century,  did  it  become  the  natural  .capital  of 
Eastern  Europe?  The  answer  is  plain.  The  magnifi- 
cent maritime  position  of  Byzantium  was  neutralised 
so  long  as  the  Balkan  peninsula  and  the  valley  of 
the  Danube  was  filled  with  barbarous  nomads.  The 
great  wars  of  Trajan  and  his  successors,  in  the  first  and 


342  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

second  centuries,  for  the  first  time  brought  the  whole 
basin  of  the  Danube  into  the  limits  of  the  empire. 
Thus,  when  Constantinople  was  founded,  it  was  secure 
by  land  as  well  as  by  sea.  When,  in  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries,  Italy,  Spain,  Gaul,  and  Africa  were  swept  by 
a  succession  of  Northern  invaders,  the  Empire  had  com- 
mand of  great  armies,  ample  to  man  the  vast  system  of 
fortifications  across  her  double  peninsula.  And  thus  she 
resisted  the  torrent  which  submerged  and  devastated 
Western  Europe. 

The  part  played  by  Byzantium  down  to  the  time  of 
Constantine  was  subordinate,  but  significant.  It  is  fre- 
quently mentioned  by  almost  all  the  ancient  historians  ; 
and  of  famous  chiefs  who  were  concerned  with  it  we 
have  Pausanias  the  victor  of  Plataea,  Cimon,  the  son 
of  Miltiades,  Alcibiades,  Epaminondas,  Demosthenes, 
Philip  of  Macedon,  many  Roman  generals,  the  Em- 
perors Claudius,  Vespasian,  Severus,  Licinius,  and  Con- 
stantine. It  is  a  strange  accident  that  the  city  of  the 
later  empire  and  of  the  Sultans  was  the  city  wherein 
Pausanias,  the  victor  of  Plataea,  was  seized  with  the 
mania  for  assuming  an  Oriental  tyranny,  and  that  it  was 
where  the  Seraglio  now  stands  that  the  infatuated  king 
perpetrated  the  horrid  deed  of  lust  and  blood,  which 
our  poet  introduces  in  his  Manfred.  Is  there  something 
in  the  air  of  that  hill  where  we  now  stare  at  the 
'  Sublime  Porte,'  which  fires  the  blood  of  tyrants  to 
savage  and  mysterious  crime  ? 

The  removal  of  the  imperial  capital  from  Rome  to 
Byzantium  was  one  of  the  most  decisive  acts  on  record 
— a  signal  monument  of  foresight,  genius,  and  will. 
Madrid,  St.  Petersburg,  Berlin,  are  also  capital  cities 
created  by  the  act  of  a  powerful  ruler.  But  none  of 
these  foundations  can  compare  in  scale  and  in  import- 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY        343 

ance  with  the  tremendous  task  of  moving  the  seat  of 
empire  a  thousand  miles  to  the  East,  from  the  centre  of 
Italy  to  the  coast  of  Asia,  from  a  Latin  to  a  Greek  city, 
from  a  pagan  to  a  Christian  population.  The  motives 
which  impelled  Constantine  to  this  momentous  step 
were  doubtless  complex.  Since  the  time  of  Trajan, 
Rome  had  not  been  the  constant  residence  of  the  Em- 
perors, except  of  Antoninus  Pius,  nor  the  regular  seat 
of  government.  Since  the  time  of  Diocletian,  Rome 
had  been  abandoned  as  the  official  centre  of  the  empire. 
Many  places  east  of  it  had  been  tried  ;  and  Constan- 
tine, when  resolved  on  the  great  change,  seriously  con- 
templated two,  if  not  three,  other  sites.  It  had  long 
been  agreed  that  the  imperial  seat  must  be  transferred 
towards  the  East ;  and  there  was  an  instinctive  sense 
that  the  valley  of  the  Tiber  was  no  longer  safe  from 
the  incessant  onward  march  of  the  Teutonic  nations 
in  arms. 

The  tendency  was  to  get  somewhere  south  of  the 
Danube,  and  within  reach  of  Asia  Minor  and  the 
Euphrates.  The  greater  chiefs  had  all  felt  that  the 
empire  must  be  recast,  both  politically  and  spiritually. 
By  the  fourth  century  it  was  clear  that  the  empire  must 
break  with  the  rooted  prejudices  that  surrounded  the 
Senate  of  Rome  and  the  gods  of  the  Capitol.  And 
Constantine,  the  half-conscious  and  half-convinced  agent 
of  the  great  change — the  change  from  the  ancient  world 
to  the  modern  world,  from  polytheism  to  Christianity 
— saw  in  the  Church  and  Bishop  of  Rome  a  power 
which  would  never  be  his  creature.  Dante  tells  us  that 
'  Caesar  became  a  Greek  in  order  to  give  place  to  the 
Roman  pastor.'  There  is  much  in  this  :  but  it  is  not  the 
whole  truth,  for  Caesar  might  have  become  a  Spaniard, 
or  a  Gaul,  or  an  Illyrian.  Dante  might  have  added 


344  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

that  Caesar  became  an  Oriental,  in  order  to  give  place 
to  the  Goth.  Constantinople  from  the  first  was  a 
Christian  city,  with  an  orthodox  Church  ;  but  it  was  a 
Church  that  was,  from  the  first,  a  department  of  the 
State. 

The  topography,  apart  from  the  geography  of  Con- 
stantinople, may  demand  some  words  ;  for  the  history 
of  the  city  from  Constantine  to  Abdul  Hamid  is  based 
on  its  physical  characters.  We  cannot  doubt  that 
the  many  delights  of  this  spot,  the  varied  resources  of 
the  surrounding  country,  the  combination  of  sea,  bay, 
mountain,  valley,  terrace,  and  garden,  as  these  rise  one 
beyond  the  other,  have  made  Constantinople  for  fifteen 
centuries  the  residence  of  Emperors  and  Caliphs,  the 
dream  and  pride  of  nations,  and  the  crown  of  imperial 
ambition. 

Those  who  approach  Constantinople  from  Greece,  as 
all  men  should,  have  sailed  through  that  long  panorama 
of  island,  mountain,  and  headland  which  the  ./Egean 
Sea  presents,  past  '  Troy  town '  and  the  unknown  home 
of  its  minstrel ;  and  every  rock  recalls  some  tale  or 
poem  for  the  three  thousand  years  since  European 
thought  and  arts  rose  into  being  across  those  waters. 
The  Hellespont  has  been  passed  with  its  legends  and 
histories,  and  the  sea  of  Marmora  with  its  islands  of 
marble,  its  rich  shores  and  distant  ranges  of  mountain — 
and  as  the  morning  sun  touches  the  crescents  on  her 
domes,  the  eternal  city  of  New  Rome  bursts  into  view, 
looking  on  the  East  and  the  South  across  the  blue 
waters  of  Propontis  and  Bosphorus,  with  her  seven  hills 
rising  towards  Europe  one  behind  the  other,  each 
crowned  with  cupola  and  minaret,  amidst  arcaded  ter- 
races, and  groves  of  acacia,  myrtle,  and  cypress. 

This  glorious  vision,  if  not  the  most  beautiful,  is  the 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS  AN    HISTORIC   CITY       345 

most  varied  and  fascinating  of  its  kind  in  Europe. 
Some  prefer  the  bay  of  Naples,  or  the  bay  of  Salamis, 
or  of  Genoa  ;  but  neither  Naples,  nor  Athens,  nor  Rome, 
nor  Genoa,  nor  Venice,  have,  as  cities,  anything  of  the 
extent,  variety,  and  complexity  of  Constantinople,  if  we 
include  its  four  or  five  suburbs,  its  magnificent  sea  land- 
scape, its  bays,  islands,  and  mountains,  in  the  distance. 
For  Constantinople  does  not  stand  upon  an  open  sea 
like  Naples,  or  Genoa,  but  on  a  great  marine  lake  with 
its  shores,  vine-clad  hills,  headlands,  and  pearly  moun- 
tain ranges  in  the  far  horizon.  Like  Athens  or  Venice, 
it  has  a  sea-port  without  an  open  sea  outside.  And  as 
a  city,  it  is  vastly  more  grand  and  varied  than  Venice, 
Athens,  Florence,  or  Edinburgh.  Hence,  Constanti- 
nople combines  such  sea  views  as  we  find  round  the 
Western  islands  of  Scotland  or  of  Greece,  with  the 
summer  sky  and  vegetation  of  Italy,  and  the  mountain 
ranges  which  fill  the  horizon  from  the  plains  of  Lom- 
bardy. 

Was  it  more  beautiful  in  the  age  of  the  Empire  than 
it  is  to-day?  Perhaps  from  a  distance,  from  the  sea, 
the  Stamboul  of  to-day  is  a  far  more  striking  sight  than 
the  Byzantium  of  the  Caesars.  The  minarets,  an  Eastern 
and  Moslem  feature,  are  the  distinctive  mark  of  the 
modern  city,  and  do  much  to  break  the  monotony  of 
the  Byzantine  cupolas.  There  are  four  or  five  mosques 
which  repeat  and  rival  the  church  of  the  Holy  Wisdom, 
and  some  of  them  have  nobler  sites.  Nor  were  the 
towers  and  battlements  of  ancient  architecture  to  be 
compared  in  beauty  and  in  scale  with  those  of  Mediaeval 
and  Moslem  builders.  But  the  city,  as  seen  within,  in 
the  I  saurian  and  Basilian  dynasties,  we  may  assume  in 
the  five  centuries  which  separate  Justinian  from  the 
First  Crusade,  must  have  greatly  surpassed  in  noble  art, 


346  THE  CITY   IN   HISTORY 

if  not  in  pictorial  effect,  the  Ottoman  city  that  we  see. 
The  enormous  palace  and  hippodrome,  the  basilicas, 
churches,  halls,  and  porticoes,  with  their  profusion  of 
marble,  mosaic,  bronzes,  and  paintings,  their  colossal 
figures,  obelisks,  and  columns,  the  choicest  relics  of 
Greek  sculpture,  the  memorial  statues,  baths,  theatres, 
and  forums — must  have  far  surpassed  the  decaying 
remnant  of  Stamboul  which  so  often  disenchants  the 
traveller  when  he  disembarks  from  the  Golden  Horn. 

III.  Antiquities  of  Constantinople 

Constantine  created  his  New  Rome  in  330,  as  never 
ruler  before  or  since  created  a  city.  It  \vas  made  a 
mighty  and  resplendent  capital  within  a  single  decade. 
Italy,  Greece,  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Egypt,  Mauritania 
were  despoiled  of  their  treasures  to  adorn  the  new 
metropolis.  Constantine  built  churches,  theatres,  forums, 
baths,  porticoes,  palaces,  monuments,  and  aqueducts. 
He  built,  adorned,  and  peopled  a  great  capital  all  at  a 
stroke,  and  made  it,  after  Rome  and  Athens,  the  most 
splendid  city  of  the  ancient  world.  Two  centuries  later, 
Justinian  became  the  second  founder  of  the  city.  And 
from  Constantine  down  to  the  capture  by  the  Crusaders, 
for  nearly  nine  centuries,  a  succession  of  Emperors  con- 
tinued to  raise  great  sacred  and  lay  buildings.  Of  the 
city  before  Constantine  little  remains  above  the  ground, 
except  some  sculptures  in  the  museum,  and  foundations 
of  some  walls,  which  Dr.  Paspates  believes  that  he  can 
trace.  Of  Constantine  and  his  immediate  successors 
there  remain  parts  of  the  hippodrome,  of  walls,  aque- 
ducts, cisterns,  and  forums,  some  columns  and  monu- 
ments. Of  the  Emperors  from  Theodosius  to  the 
Crusades  we  still  have,  little  injured,  the  grand  church 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY       347 

of  Sophia,  some  twenty  churches  much  altered  and 
mostly  late  in  date,  the  foundations  of  palaces,  and  one 
still  standing  in  ruins,  and  lastly  the  twelve  miles  of 
walls  with  their  gates  and  towers.  The  museums  con- 
tain sarcophagi,  statues,  inscriptions  of  the  Roman  age. 
But  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  an  immense  body  of 
Byzantine  relics  and  buildings  still  lie  buried  some  ten 
or  twenty  feet  below  the  ground  whereon  stand  to-day 
the  serails,  khans,  mosques,  and  houses  of  Stamboul, 
a  soil  which  the  Ottoman  is  loth  to  disturb.  When  the 
day  comes  that  such  scientific  excavations  are  possible 
as  have  been  made  in  the  Forum  and  the  Palatine  at 
Rome,  we  may  yet  look  to  unveil  many  monuments  of 
rare  historical  interest,  and,  it  might  be,  a  few  of  high 
artistic  value.  As  yet,  the  cuttings  for  the  railway  have 
given  almost  the  only  opportunity  that  antiquarians 
have  had  of  investigating  below  the  surface  of  the  actual 
city,  which  stands  upon  a  deep  stratum  of  debris. 

One  monument,  eight  centuries  older  than  Constan- 
tine  himself,  has  been  recently  disinterred,  and  curiously 
enough  by  English  hands.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest,  most 
historic,  most  venerable  relics  of  the  ancient  world. 
The  Serpent  Column  of  bronze  from  Delphi,  set  up  by 
the  Greeks  as  base  for  the  golden  tripod  to  com- 
memorate the  final  defeat  of  Xerxes,  an  object  of 
pilgrimage  for  Greeks  for  eight  centuries,  stands  still 
in  the  spot  where  a  Roman  emperor  placed  it  in  the 
hippodrome  ;  and  after  2373  years,  it  still  bears  wit- 
ness to  the  first  great  victory  of  the  West  over  the  East. 
When  the  East  triumphed  over  the  West  nearly  2000 
years  later,  the  conqueror  left  this  secular  monument 
on  its  base ;  and  during  the  Crimean  war  English 
soldiers  dug  it  out  of  the  surrounding  debris  and  re- 
vealed the  rude  inscription  of  the  thirty  confederate 


348  THE   CITY  IN    HISTORY 

states  exactly  as  Herodotus  and  Pausanias  record. 
With  the  bronze  Wolf  of  the  Capitol,  it  may  count  as 
the  most  precious  metal  relic  which  remains  from  the 
ancient  world ;  for  the  Crusaders  melted  down  into 
pence  every  piece  of  bronze  statuary  they  could  seize, 
and  carried  off  to  St.  Mark's,  at  Venice,  the  four  horses 
that  bear  the  name  of  Lysippus. 

Constantinople  is  rich,  not  in  works  of  art,  for  those 
of  the  city  have  been  wantonly  destroyed,  but  in  historic 
sites,  which  appeal  to  the  scholar  rather  than  to  the 
public  ;  but  in  so  singular  a  conformation  of  sea  and 
land,  the  sites  can  often  be  fixed  with  some  precision. 
We  may  still  note  the  spot  where  daring  pioneers  from 
Megara  set  up  their  Acropolis  a  century  and  a  half 
before  the  battle  of  Marathon  ;  we  can  trace  the  original 
harbour,  the  position  of  some  temples,  and  the  line  of 
the  walls.  We  can  stand  beside  the  burial-place  of  a 
long  line  of  emperors,  and  trace  the  plan  of  the  forums, 
palaces,  and  hippodrome  where  so  vast  a  succession  of 
stirring  scenes  took  place,  some  of  the  earlier  monu- 
ments and  churches,  the  hall  where  Justinian  promul- 
gated the  Corpus  Juris  which  has  served  the  greater 
part  of  Europe  for  thirteen  centuries  and  a  half.  And, 
above  all,  we  have  the  great  Church  in  something  like 
its  original  glory,  less  injured  by  time  and  man  than 
almost  any  remaining  mediaeval  cathedral. 

The  Church  of  S.  Sophia  is,  next  to  the  Pantheon  at 
Rome,  the  most  central  and  historic  edifice  still  standing 
erect.  It  is  now  in  its  fourteenth  century  of  continuous 
and  unbroken  use ;  and  during  the  whole  of  that  vast 
epoch,  it  has  never  ceased  to  be  the  imperial  fane  of  the 
Eastern  world,  nor  has  it  ever,  as  the  Pantheon,  been 
desolate  and  despoiled.  Its  influence  over  Eastern 
architecture  has  been  as  wide  as  that  of  the  Pantheon 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN   HISTORIC   CITY       349 

over  Western  architecture,  and  it  has  been  far  more 
continuous.  It  was  one  of  the  most  original,  daring, 
and  triumphant  conceptions  in  the  whole  record  of 
human  building  ;  and  Mr.  Fergusson  declares  it  to  be 
internally  '  the  most  perfect  and  beautiful  church  ever 
yet  erected  by  any  Christian  people.'  Its  interior  is 
certainly  the  most  harmonious,  most  complete,  and  least 
faulty  of  all  the  great  domed  and  round-arched  temples. 
It  unites  sublimity  of  construction  with  grace  of  detail, 
splendour  of  decoration  with  indestructible  material.  It 
avoids  the  conspicuous  faults  of  the  great  temples  of 
Rome  and  of  Florence,  whilst  it  is  far  richer  in  decora- 
tive effect  within  than  our  own  St.  Paul's  or  the 
Pantheon  of  Paris.  Its  glorious  vesture  of  marble, 
mosaic,  carving,  and  cast  metal,  is  unsurpassed  by  the 
richest  of  the  Gothic  cathedrals,  and  is  far  more  endur- 
ing. Though  twice  as  old  as  Westminster  Abbey,  it 
has  suffered  less  dilapidation,  and  will  long  outlast  it. 
Its  constructive  mass  and  its  internal  ornamentation  far 
exceed  in  solidity  the  slender  shafts,  the  paintings,  and 
the  stained  glass  of  the  Gothic  churches.  In  this 
masterly  type  the  mind  is  aroused  by  the  infinite 
subtlety  of  the  construction,  and  the  eye  is  delighted 
with  the  inexhaustible  harmonies  of  a  superb  design 
worked  out  in  most  gorgeous  materials. 

For  Justinian  and  his  successors  ransacked  the  empire 
to  find  the  most  precious  materials  for  the  '  Great 
Church.'  The  interior  is  still  one  vast  pile  of  marble, 
porphyry,  and  polished  granite,  white  marbles  with  rosy 
streaks,  green  marbles,  blue  and  black,  starred  or  veined 
with  white.  The  pagan  temples  were  stripped  of  their 
columns  and  capitals ;  monoliths  and  colossal  slabs 
were  transported  from  Rome,  and  from  the  Nile,  from 
Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and  Greece,  so  that,  with  the 


350  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

Pantheon  at  Rome,  this  is  the  one  example  of  a  grand 
structure  of  ancient  art  which  still  remains  unruined. 
The  gilded  portals,  the  jewels,  pearls,  and  gold  of  the 
altar,  the  choir  adornment  of  cedar,  amber,  ivory,  and 
silver,  have  been  long  destroyed  by  the  greedy  soldiers 
of  the  Cross  ;  and  the  mosaics  above  with  seraphim, 
apostles,  prophets,  and  Christ  in  glory  have  been 
covered  up,  but  not  destroyed,  by  the  fierce  soldiers 
of  Mahomet. 

It  is -a  fact,  almost  without  parallel  in  the  history  of 
religion,  that  the  Musulman  conquerors  adopted  the 
Christian  cathedral  as  their  own  fane,  without  injuring 
it,  with  very  little  alteration  within,  and  even  without 
changing  its  name.  The  Greeks  did  not  adopt  the 
form  of  Egyptian  or  Syrian  temples ;  Christians  took 
for  the  model  of  their  churches  the  law-courts,  but  not 
the  temples  of  Polytheism ;  Protestants  have  never 
found  a  practical  use  for  the  cruciform  churches  of 
Catholicism.  But  Islam  accepted  the  Holy  Wisdom 
as  the  type  of  its  mosque ;  partially  concealed  the 
Christian  emblems  and  sacred  mosaics,  added  without 
some  courts  and  the  four  beautiful  minarets,  but  made 
no  structural  change  within.  And  thus  the  oldest 
cathedral  in  Christendom  is  the  type  of  a  thousand 
mosques ;  and  the  figures  of  Christ  and  his  saints,  that 
a  Roman  emperor  set  up  in  his  imperial  dome,  look 
down  to-day  after  fifteen  centuries  on  the  Westminster 
Abbey  of  the  Ottoman  Caliphs.  What  a  dazzling 
panorama  of  stirring,  pathetic,  and  terrific  scenes  press 
on  the  mind  of  the  student  of  Byzantine  history  as  he 
recalls  all  which  that  vast  fane  has  witnessed  in  the 
thousand  years  that  separate  the  age  of  Justinian  from 
that  of  Suleiman  the  Magnificent :  from  the  day  when 
the  great  emperor  cried  out,  '  I  have  surpassed  thee,  O 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY       351 

Solomon  ! '  to  the  days  when  Ottoman  conquerors  gave 
thanks  for  a  hundred  victories  over  the  Cross.  Has 
any  building  in  the  world  been  witness  to  so  vast  a 
series  of  memorable  events  ? 

In  historic  memories,  the  walls  of  Constantinople  can 
compare  with  her  great  Church  ;  for  the  ruined  walls 
are  still  the  most  colossal  and  pathetic  relics  of  the 
ancient  world  that  remain  in  Europe.  Except  the  walls 
round  Rome,  there  is  no  scene  in  Europe  so  strange,  so 
desolate,  and  mantled  with  such  annals  of  battle,  crime, 
despair,  and  heroism.  Though  the  sea  walls  have  been 
partly  removed  and  much  injured  by  man,  the  vast 
rampart  on  the  west  which  stretches  from  Blachernae  on 
the  Golden  Horn  to  the  Seven  Towers  on  the  Marmora, 
a  distance  of  nearly  four  miles,  is  still,  but  for  natural 
decay  and  disturbance,  in  the  state  in  which  it  was  left 
by  Sultan  Mohammed  the  Conqueror  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  It  was  then  more  than  a  thousand  years  old  ; 
and  during  the  whole  of  that  period  it  had  been  in- 
creased, repaired,  strengthened,  doubled,  and  tripled. 
It  is  still  a  museum  or  vast  catacomb  of  Byzantine 
history.  More  fortunate  than  the  walls  of  Rome  and 
other  ancient  cities,  the  western  walls  of  Constantinople 
have  hardly  been  touched  by  the  hand  of  man  since  the 
Turks  entered.  This  complicated  scheme  of  circum- 
vallation,  far  stronger  than  the  walls  of  Rome  or  of  any 
other  ancient  or  mediaeval  city,  made  an  impenetrable 
barrier,  whilst  adequately  manned  and  defended,  down 
to  the  invention  of  the  heavy  cannon.  We  can  still 
trace  the  plan  and  form  of  the  triple  line  of  wall,  of  the 
moat,  of  the  two  causeways,  of  the  fourteen  gates,  and 
the  one  hundred  and  ninety-four  towers,  and  the  ruined 
palace  of  the  later  emperors. 

Here  and   there  the  massive  towers  are  riven  and 


352  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

tottering,  torn  by  cannon,  earthquake,  and  centuries  of 
neglect  and  decay.  The  shrunken  city  of  Stamboul 
does  not  now  touch  them,  and  no  populous  suburbs 
have  grown  round  them.  Cemeteries  with  cypress  and 
tombstones,  the  cupola  of  a  small  oratory,  or  the  roof  of 
a  hospital,  alone  break  the  view.  But  the  crumbling 
walls  and  towers  stand  in  solitude  amidst  orchards 
and  gardens,  and  nothing  disturbs  the  student  who 
deciphers  inscriptions  set  up  by  Constantines,  Leos, 
Basils,  Comneni,  and  Palaeologi,  and  here  and  there  a 
Roman  eagle  and  a  Greek  cross.1  The  Golden  Gate, 
with  its  two  marble  towers,  prisons,  palace  halls,  the 
famous  Castle  of  Blachernae  and  the  Seven  Towers, 
carry  us  through  a  thousand  years  of  history — but  most 
of  all  we  linger  near  the  breach  hard  by  the  gate  of 
S.  Romanus,  where  the  last  Constantine  met  the  Otto- 
man Mohammed  in  deadly  grip,  redeeming  by  his  death 
four  centuries  of  feebleness  in  his  ancestors,  as  he  fell 
amidst  heaps  of  slain  : — 

'With  his  face  up  to  Heaven,  in  that  red  monument 
Which  his  good  sword  had  digg'd.' 

Of  all  cities  of  the  world  Constantinople  is  memor- 
able for  its  sieges,  the  most  numerous  and  the  most 
momentous  in  the  records  of  history.  For  long  centuries 
together  the  city  was  a  besieged  fortress,  and  during 
nearly  eight  centuries  her  vast  fortifications  resisted  the 
efforts  of  all  foreign  invaders.  Goths,  Huns,  Avars, 
Slaves,  Persians,  Saracens,  Bulgarians,  Hungarians, 
Turks,  and  Russians,  have  continually  assailed  and 
menaced  them  in  vain.  Great  conquerors,  such  as 
Zabergan,  Chosroes,  Muaviah,  Omar,  Moslemah,  Crumn, 

1  They  have  been  collected  and  explained  by  Dr.  Paspates  in  his 
'Bva.vTival  MeX^reu. 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY       353 

Haroun-al-Raschid,  Bayazid,  failed  to  shake  them.  For 
ten  years  a  Persian  camp  stood  in  arms  at  Chalcedon 
across  the  Bosphorus  ;  for  years  the  Saracens  assailed 
it  year  by  year  in  vain  (674-677,  and  717-718). 
These  sieges  were  not  mere  expeditions  against  a  single 
stronghold  ;  they  involved  the  fate  of  an  empire  and  a 
religion.  Had  pagans,  fire-worshippers,  or  Musulmans, 
nomad  hordes,  or  devastating  Mongols  succeeded  in 
piercing  these  walls  before  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
course  of  civilisation  would  have  been  seriously  changed. 
For  a  thousand  years  these  crumbling  ramparts,  which 
to-day  we  see  in  such  pathetic  desolation,  were  the 
bulwark  of  European  civilisation,  of  the  traditions  of 
Rome,  of  the  Christendom  of  the  East,  and  in  no  small 
degree  of  learning,  arts,  and  commerce,  until  the  great 
mediaeval  reconstruction  was  ready  to  appear. 

It  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  enormous  persistency  of 
Byzantine  history  that  the  Bulgarians  and  Russians, 
both  of  whom  are  still  pressing  eagerly  onwards  with 
longing  eyes  set  on  the  city  of  the  Bosphorus,  have  been 
from  time  to  time  renewing  these  attacks  for  more  than 
a  thousand  years.  It  was  in  813  that  Crumn,  the  great 
king  of  the  Bulgarians,  opened  his  terrible  onslaught ; 
and  it  was  nearly  two  centuries  later  that  Basil,  '  the 
slayer  of  the  Bulgarians,'  began  his  triumphant  campaign 
against  that  secular  foe.  The  first  siege  of  Constanti- 
nople by  Moslems,  that  of  the  Saracen  Muaviah  in  673, 
began  nearly  eight  centuries  before  the  last  Moslem 
siege,  that  under  the  Ottoman  conqueror  in  1453.  And 
the  first  attack  on  Constantinople  by  Russians,  in  865, 
was  separated  by  more  than  a  thousand  years  from 
their  last  attack,  when  they  reached  San  Stefano  within 
sight  of  the  minarets.  For  all  this  thousand  years 
the  Russian  has  hungered  and  thirsted  for  the  '  Sacred 

z 


354  THE   ^ITY    IN    HISTORY 

City,'  whether  it  were  held  by  Romans,  Greeks,  Latins, 
or  Ottomans — and  hitherto  he  has  hungered  and 
thirsted  in  vain. 

They  count  more  than  twenty  sieges  in  all ;  but  the 
most  memorable  are  undoubtedly  the  triumphant  re- 
pulse of  Persians  and  Avars  in  the  reign  of  Heraclius 
in  616,  and  again  in  626;  the  glorious  defeat  of  the 
Saracens  in  673,  in  the  reign  of  Constantine  IV.,  and 
again  in  717,  in  the  reign  of  Leo  III.;  and  lastly,  the  two 
successful  sieges — when  Constantinople  was  captured 
by  the  Venetians  and  Crusaders  in  1203-4;  and  again 
when  it  was  stormed  by  Mohammed  the  Conqueror  in 
1453.  Of  all  memorable  and  romantic  sieges  on  record, 
these  two  are  the  most  impressive  to  the  historic 
imagination,  by  virtue  of  the  crowding  of  dramatic 
incidents,  the  singular  energy  and  wonderful  resources 
they  display,  and  the  vast  issues  which  hung  on  the 
event.  The  siege  of  Tyre  by  Alexander,  of  Syracuse 
by  Nicias,  of  Carthage  by  Scipio,  the  two  sieges  of 
Jerusalem  by  Titus  and  by  Godfrey,  the  successive 
sackings  of  Rome,  the  defence  of  Rhodes  and  Malta 
against  the  Turks — none  of  these  can  quite  equal  in 
vivid  colour  and  breathless  interest  the  two  great 
captures  of  Constantinople,  and  certainly  the  last.  It 
stands  out  on  the  canvas  of  history  by  the  magnitude 
of  the  issues  involved  to  religion,  to  nations,  to  civilisa- 
tion, in  the  glowing  incidents  of  the  struggle,  in  the 
heroism  of  the  defence  and  of  the  attack,  in  the  dramatic 
catastrophe  and  personal  contrast  of  two  typical  chiefs, 
one  at  the  head  of  the  conquerors  and  the  other  of  the 
defeated.  And  by  a  singular  fortune,  this  thrilling 
drama,  in  a  great  turning-point  of  human  civilisation, 
has  been  told  in  the  most  splendid  chapter  of  the  most 
consummate  history  which  our  language  has  produced. 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY        355 

The  storming  and  sack  of  Constantinople  in  the  Fourth 
Crusade  by  a  mixed  host  of  Venetian,  Flemish,  Italian, 
and  French  filibusters,  a  story  so  well  told  by  Mr.  E. 
Pears  in  his  excellent  monograph,  was  not  only  one  of 
the  most  extraordinary  adventures  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
but  one  of  the  most  wanton  crimes  against  civilisation 
committed  by  feudal  lawlessness  and  religious  bigotry, 
at  a  time  of  confusion  and  superstition.  It  is  a  dark 
blot  on  the  record  of  the  Church,  and  on  the  memory  of 
Innocent  III.,  and  a  standing  monument  of  the  anarchy 
and  rapacity  to  which  Feudalism  was  liable  to  de- 
generate. The  sack  of  Constantinople  by  the  so-called 
soldiers  of  the  cross  in  the  thirteenth  century  was  far 
more  bloodthirsty,  more  wanton,  more  destructive  than 
the  storming  of  Constantinople  by  the  followers  of 
Mahomet  in  the  fifteenth  century.  It  had  far  less 
historic  justification,  it  had  more  disastrous  effects  on 
human  progress,  and  it  introduced  a  less  valuable  and 
less  enduring  type  of  civilised  life.  The  Crusaders,  who 
had  no  serious  aim  but  plunder,  effected  nothing  but 
destruction.  They  practically  annihilated  the  East 
Roman  Empire,  which  never  recovered  from  this  fatal 
blow.  It  is  true  that  the  Byzantine  Empire  had  been 
rapidly  decaying  for  more  than  a  century,  and  that  its 
indispensable  service  to  civilisation  was  completed.  But 
the  crusading  buccaneers  burned  down  a  great  part  of  the 
richest  city  of  Europe,  which  was  a  museum  and  remnant 
of  antiquity ;  they  wantonly  destroyed  priceless  works 
of  art,  buildings,  books,  records,  and  documents.  They 
effected  nothing  of  their  own  purpose ;  and  what  they 
indirectly  caused  was  a  stimulus  to  Italian  commerce,  the 
dispersion  through  Europe  of  some  arts,  and  the  removal 
of  the  last  barrier  against  the  entrance  of  the  Moslem 
into  Europe. 


356  THE  CITY    IN    HISTORY 

The  conquest  by  the  Ottomans  in  the  fifteenth  century 
was  a  very  different  thing — a  problem  too  complex  to  be 
hastily  touched.  Europe,  as  we  have  seen,  was  by  that 
time  strong  enough  to  win  in  the  long  and  tremendous 
struggle  with  Islam  ;  it  was  ready  to  receive  and  use  the 
profound  intellectual  and  artistic  impulse  which  was 
caused  by  the  dispersion  of  the  Byzantine  Greeks.  The 
Ottoman  conquest  was  no  mere  raid,  but  the  foundation 
of  a.  European  Empire,  now  in  the  fifth  century  of  its 
existence.  The  wonderful  tale  of  the  rise,  zenith,  wane, 
and  decay  of  the  European  Empire  of  the  Padishah  of 
Roum — one  of  the  least  familiar  to  the  general  reader — 
is  borne  in  upon  the  traveller  to  Stamboul  in  the  series 
of  magnificent  mosques  of  the  conquering  sultans  of  the 
fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries,  in  the 
exquisite  fountains,  the  mausoleums,  the  khans  and 
fortresses,  minarets  and  towers,  and  the  strange  city  of 
kiosques,  palaces,  gates,  gardens,  and  terraces,  known  to 
us  as  the  Seraglio.  In  these  vast  and  stately  mosques, 
in  the  profusion  of  glowing  ornament,  porcelains,  tiles, 
and  carvings,  in  the  incongruous  jumble  of  styles,  in  the 
waste,  squalor,  and  tawdry  remnants  of  the  abandoned 
palace  of  the  Padishahs,  we  read  the  history  of  the  Otto- 
man Turks  for  the  last  five  centuries — splendour  beside 
ruin,  exquisite  art  beside  clumsy  imitation,  courage  and 
pride  beside  apathy  and  despair,  a  magnificent  soldiery 
as  of  old  with  a  dogged  persistency  that  dies  hard,  a 
patient  submission  to  inevitable  destiny  beside  fervour, 
loyalty,  dignity,  and  a  race  patriotism  which  are  not  to 
be  found  in  the  rank  and  file  of  European  capitals. 

But  Stamboul  is  not  only  a  school  of  Byzantine  his- 
tory ;  it  has  rich  lessons  of  European  history.  We  see 
the  Middle  Ages  living  there  still  unreformed — the 
Middle  Ages  with  their  colour  and  their  squalor,  their 


CONSTANTINOPLE   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY       357 

ignorance  and  credulity,  their  heroism  and  self-devotion, 
their  traditions,  resignation,  patience,  and  passionate  faith. 
We  can  imagine  ourselves  in  some  city  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages,  the  meeting-place  of  nations,  Venice  or 
Genoa,  Paris  or  Rome,  or  even  old  Rome  in  the  age  of 
Trajan,  where  races,  religions,  costumes,  ideas,  and 
occupations  meet  side  by  side  but  do  not  mix.  The 
Moslem,  the  Armenian,  the  Greek,  the  Jew,  the  Catholic, 
have  their  own  quarters,  dress,  language,  worship,  occu- 
pation, law,  and  government.  They  pass  as  if  invisible 
to  each  other,  and  will  neither  eat,  pray,  work,  trade,  or 
converse  with  each  other.  Stand  upon  the  bridge  across 
the  Golden  Horn,  or  in  the  lovely  cloister  of  Bayazid, 
and  watch  the  green-turbaned  hadjis,  the  softas,  hammals, 
itinerant  vendors,  soldiers  and  sailors,  boatmen  and 
mendicants,  Roumelian  and  Anatolian  peasants,  with  all 
the  cosmopolitan  collection  of  the  busy  and  the  idle, 
from  the  Danube  to  the  Euphrates.  It  is  the  East  and 
the  West  on  their  one  neutral  meeting-ground,  the  one 
Oriental  spot  still  left  in  Europe,  the  one  mediaeval 
capital  that  has  survived  into  the  nineteenth  century. 


CHAPTER    XII 

THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  T 

THE  city  of  the  Seven  Hills  upon  the  Golden  Horn 
is  at  once  the  paradox  of  mediaeval  history,  and  the 
dilemma  of  European  statesmen.  In  the  historical  field 
it  presents  a  set  of  problems  which  no  historian  has 
adequately  solved,  the  full  difficulties  of  which  have  been 
duly  grasped  only  in  our  own  age.  In  the  political  world 
it  presents  the  great  crux,  over  which  former  generations 
laboured,  fought,  and  bled  ;  which  our  own  generation 
seems  willing  to  give  up  as  insoluble,  to  ignore  and  to 
intrust  to  chance. 

There  is  danger  that,  in  the  minute  research  into  local 
institutions  that  is  now  in  vogue,  the  true  historical 
importance  of  Byzantine  story  may  be  forgotten  ;  and 
danger  also  that,  in  the  roar  of  battle  round  our  demo- 
cratic issues,  the  political  importance  of  Constantinople 
as  an  eternal  factor  in  the  European  balance  of  power 
may  be  quite  lost  to  sight.  Mediaeval  and  modern 
annals  offer  to  the  student  no  subjects  of  meditation 
more  fascinating  and  more  mysterious  than  are  the 
fifteen  centuries  of  New  Rome.  And  the  dilemma  of 
what  is  to  be  the  ultimate  fate  of  Constantinople  is 
as  urgent  as  ever,  as  perplexing  as  ever : — nay,  it  is 
much  more  urgent,  more  perplexing  than  ever.  The 
ignorant  prejudice  of  conventional  historians  about  the 
J  Fortnightly  Kevie-u',  May  1894,  No.  329,  vol.  55. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  359 

rottenness  of  the  '  Lower  Empire '  may  be  set  against 
the  purblind  commonplace  of  conventional  politicians 
about  the  Turkish  question  having  been  solved  by  the 
British  occupation  of  Egypt. 

I.    The  Historical  Problem 

Since  the  works  on  Byzantine  history,  produced 
within  the  last  thirty  years  by  European  scholars,  it  is  no 
longer  possible  to  repeat  the  stock  phrases  of  the  last 
century  about  the  puerility  and  impotence  of  the  'Lower 
Empire.'  By  far  the  most  important  contribution  to  this 
task  by  English  students,  is  the  Later  Roman  Empire 
of  Professor  Bury,  whose  two  solid  octavos  bring  the 
history  of  the  Roman  Empire  of  the  East  down  to  the 
foundation  of  the  Roman  Empire  of  the  West,  in  800  A.D. 
When  he  has  completed  his  work  down  to  the  capture  of 
Constantinople  by  the  Turks,  or  at  least  to  its  capture  by 
the  Crusaders  of  1204  A.D.,  it  will  be  evident  how  much 
the  history  of  the  Later  Empire  has  been  distorted  by 
jealousy,  pedantry,  and  fanaticism.  Even  the  genius  of 
Gibbon  could  not  wholly  emancipate  him  from  current 
prejudices;  and  he  necessarily  worked  without  the  essen- 
tial materials  which  the  industry  of  the  last  hundred 
years  has  collected.  What  has  to  be  explained  is  the 
problem — how  a  political  fabric,  built  on  such  foun- 
dations of  vice  and  chaos,  maintained  the  longest 
succession  recorded  in  history : — how  a  state  of  such 
discordant  elements  overcame  such  a  combination  of 
attacks  : — what  was  it  that  made  Constantinople,  for 
some  five  or  six  centuries  after  the  capture  of  Rome, 
the  intellectual,  artistic,  and  commercial  metropolis  of 
mediaeval  Europe : — by  what  resources  did  she,  during 
eight  centuries,  resist  the  torrent  of  Asiatic  and  Musulman 


360  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

soldiery,  before  which  the  feudal  chivalry  of  the  \\Vst 
was  so  frequently  baffled  and  crushed. 

The  origin  of  these  prejudices  and  of  such  falsification 
of  history  is  plain  enough.  The  judgment  of  Western 
Europe  on  the  Eastern  Empire  was  mainly  derived 
from,  and  coloured  by,  that  of  Catholic  churchmen  ;  and 
during  the  eleven  centuries  which  divide  the  first  Con- 
stantine  from  the  last,  the  Catholic  Church  has  borne  an 
irreconcilable  jealousy  towards  the  Orthodox  Church. 
Their  very  official  titles — the  first  claiming  universal 
obedience,  the  second  claiming  absolute  truth — involved 
them  in  a  war  wherein  there  could  be  neither  victory 
nor  truce.  The  chiefs  who  claimed  to  rule  as  repre- 
sentatives of  Charlemagne,  and  all  who  depended  upon 
them,  or  held  title  under  them  (that  is,  the  greater  part 
of  Western  Europe),  were  bound  to  treat  the  claims  of 
the  Eastern  Empire  as  preposterous  insolence.  The 
traders  of  the  Mediterranean  regarded  the  Byzantine 
wealth  and  commerce  much  as  the  navigators  of  the 
sixteenth  century  regarded  the  wealth  and  trade  of  the 
Indies — as  the  lawful  prize  of  the  strongest.  And  lastly, 
the  scholars,  the  poets,  the  chroniclers  of  the  West,  from 
the  age  of  the  Crusades  to  the  age  of  Gibbon,  have  dis- 
dained a  literature,  in  which,  as  they  said,  spiritless  and 
obsequious  annalists  recorded  the  doings  of  their  masters 
in  a  bastard  Greek.  Western  genius,  Western  Chris- 
tianity, Western  heroism  and  civilisation  much  surpass 
the  Eastern  type;  but,  with  such  a  combination  of  causes 
for  hostility  and  contempt,  the  West  could  not  fail  to  be 
grossly  unjust  to  the  record  of  the  East. 

The  root  of  the  injustice  is  the  treating  of  a  thousand 
years  of  continuous  history  as  one  uniform  piece,  and 
attributing  to  the  noblest  periods  and  the  greatest  chiefs 
the  infamies  and  crimes  which  belong  to  the  worst. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  361 

Unfortunately,  we  are  much  more  familiar  with  the 
periods  of  rottenness  and  decline  than  with  the  ages  of 
heroism  and  glory  ;  every  one  knows  something  of  the 
Theodoras,  Zoes,  and  Irenes,  and,  too  often,  very  little 
of  Heraclius,  Leo,  and  Basil.  The  five  centuries  which 
intervene  from  Justinian  to  the  Comnenian  house — a 
period  as  long  as  that  which  separates  Camillus  from 
Marcus  Aurelius — is  the  important  part  of  the  Roman 
Empire  of  the  East ;  and  the  really  grand  epochs  are 
in  the  seventh,  eighth,  and  tenth  centuries — whose  heroes, 
Heraclius,  Leo  III.,  and  Basil  II.,  may  hold  their  own  with 
the  greatest  rulers  of  ancient  or  of  modern  story. 

The  most  urgent  problem  of  all  is  to  find  an  adequate 
name  to  describe  the  Empire  of  which  Constantinople 
was  the  capital  for  at  least  a  thousand  years.  Every 
one  of  the  conventional  names  involves  a  confusion  or 
misrepresentation,  great  or  small.  '  Lower  Empire  '- 
'Greek  Empire' — 'Byzantine  Empire' — 'Eastern  Empire' 
— '  Later  Empire ' — '  Roman  Empire ' — either  suggest  a 
wrong  idea,  or  fail  to  express  the  true  idea  in  full.  In 
what  sense  was  the  empire  at  Constantinople  '  Lower '  ? 
It  certainly  regarded  itself  as'  infinitely  higher ;  an  ad- 
vance even  upon  the  classical  Roman  Empire.  Justinian 
with  justice  holds  his  rule  to  be  above  that  of  Aurelian 
and  Diocletian  ;  and  from  his  day  to  the  age  of  the 
great  Charles,  there  was  no  power  in  Europe  which  could 
compare  for  a  moment  with  the  Roman  Empire  of 
the  Bosphorus.  The  Empire  was  not  '  Greek,'  even  in 
tongue,  until  the  seventh  century  ;  it  was  not  Greek  in 
spirit  until  the  twelfth  century ;  till  then  hardly  any  of 
its  emperors,  soldiers,  or  chiefs  had  been  Greek  ;  and  it 
was  never  quite  Greek  by  race.  If  we  say  '  Byzantine  ' 
Empire,  we  are  localising  a  power  which  was  curiously 
composite  in  race,  nationality,  character,  and  tradition  ; 


362  TIIF.   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

and  the  term  '  Byzantine '  has  a  sense  too  directly 
contrary  to  Roman,  and  also  has  acquired  a  derogatory 
meaning.  The  great  heroes  of  the  empire  arc  utterly 
unlike  what  men  now  understand  by  '  Byzantine' ;  and 
there  could  hardly  be  a  more  violent  contrast  than  that 
between  the  Alexius  or  Bryennius  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
romance  and  the  Nicephorus  Phocas  or  Basil  n.  of  actual 
history.  '  Eastern  Empire '  is  erroneous  and  ambiguous ; 
for  it  suggests  a  break  with  Rome,  and  it  applies  to  the 
kingdoms  of  Persians,  Saracens,  or  Ottomans,  to  the 
Sultan  of  Roum,  or  the  Emperors  of  Nicaea  and  Trebi- 
zond.  '  Roman  Empire '  is  accurate  in  a  sense.  But 
in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  there  were  often  two 
co-ordinate  governments  ;  and  after  the  coronation  of 
Charlemagne,  in  800  A.D.,  there  were  always  two  Roman 
Empires,  and  sometimes  more.  The  term,  '  Later 
Roman  Empire,'  which  Mr.  Bury  adopts,  is  far  better ; 
but  it  might  be  applied  to  Valentinian  III.,  or  to  Romulus 
Augustulus  ;  and  it  fails  to  suggest  the  continuance  of 
the  Empire  for  a  thousand  years.  After  the  coronation 
of  Charles,  the  term  '  Later  Roman  Empire '  is  inade- 
quate ;  and  yet  that  event  marks  no  essential  break  in 
the  Empire  at  Constantinople. 

What  we  want  is  a  term  which  will  describe  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  Roman  Empire,  after  its  seat  had  been 
permanently  removed  to  the  Bosphorus,  and  yet  dis- 
tinguish it  from  the  revived  Empire  of  Charles,  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  all  other  powers  which  claimed 
a  title  from  Rome.  The  features  to  be  connoted  are 
the  prolongation  and  evolution  of  the  vast  political 
organism  of  Augustus  and  Trajan,  its  unbroken  con- 
tinuity, at  any  rate,  down  to  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
the  dominant  material  fact  that  its  permanent  centre  of 
government  was  transferred  to  the  Bosphorus :  that  it 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  CONSTANTINOPLE  363 

had  become  Christian,  but  not  Catholic.  We  go  wrong 
if  we  drop  the  title  'Roman' ;  we  go  wrong  if  we  ignore 
the  fact  of  the  transfer  of  sovereignty  to  Constantinople  ; 
we  go  wrong  if  we  fail  to  mark  how  much  this  implied, 
both  in  the  spiritual  and  the  political  sphere.  Under 
the  conditions,  the  proper  title  is,  '  The  Roman  Empire 
at  Constantinople.'  This  is  strictly  accurate  and  fairly 
complete.  It  denotes  the  whole  period  of  eleven  cen- 
turies which  separates  the  first  Constantine  from  the 
last.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose  it  applied  either  to 
Romulus  Augustulus,  Charlemagne,  or  Otto.  And  it 
defines  the  unbroken  continuity  of  government  from  its 
permanent  seat  on  the  Bosphorus.  A  simpler  equivalent 
would  be — the  Empire  of  New  Rome. 

The  next  problem  is  to  group  the  epochs  of  this 
immense  succession  of  eleven  centuries  ;  to  show  their 
diversity  in  the  midst  of  continuity  ;  to  distinguish  the 
true  periods  of  greatness  and  of  growth,  and  the  real 
eras  of  corruption  and  decay.  Unfortunately  this  is 
what  Gibbon  has  omitted  to  do,  what  he  has  even  done 
not  a  little  to  make  difficult.  Of  his  eight  octavo 
volumes  five  are  devoted  to  the  history  of  about  five 
centuries,  and  three  only  are  given  to  the  remaining 
eight  centuries.  He  himself  was  struck  with  the 
apparent  paradox,  which  he  seems  to  excuse  (at  the 
opening  of  his  48th  chapter)  by  his  own  and  the 
reader's  fatigue  in  the  melancholy  task  of  recording 
the  annals  of  the  Eastern  Empire.  The  genius  of  the 
greatest  of  historians  has  been  betrayed  into  no  error 
more  capital  than  that  which  led  him  to  describe  the 
annals  of  the  Empire  from  Heraclius  to  the  last  Con- 
stantine as  'a  tedious  and  uniform  tale  of  weakness 
and  misery.'  Gibbon,  it  is  plain,  was  partly  misled  by 
the  dearth  of  writings,  and  partly  overwhelmed  by  the 


364  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

enormous  scale  of  his  ever-enlarging  survey.  But  with 
all  that  we  now  have  at  hand,  it  is  wonderful  to  think- 
that  he  was  ever  tempted  to  abandon  '  the  Greek  slaves 
and  their  servile  historians.'  If  this  is  a  description  of 
the  Iconoclasts  and  the  Basils,  Leo  the  Deacon  and 
Nicetas,  language  must  have  a  new  meaning.  In  truth, 
'  a  tedious  tale  of  weakness '  would  be  as  aptly  applied 
to  the  lives  of  William  the  Conqueror  and  the  Plan- 
tagenet  kings  as  to  the  exploits  and  adventures  of 
Leo  III.,  Constantine  V.,  the  two  Basils,  Nicephorus 
Phocas,  John  Zimisces,  Kalo-Joannes,  and  Manuel. 

Even  in  the  matter  of  literary  culture  and  pure  Greek, 
we  are  apt  to  compare  the  Byzantine  historians  with 
classical  or  with  our  modern  authors.  Clearly  we  ought 
to  compare  them  with  their  contemporaries  in  Europe. 
The  iambics  in  which  George  of  Pisidia  celebrated  the 
exploits  of  Heraclius,  or  those  in  which  the  Deacon 
Theodosius  sang  the  recovery  of  Crete  by  Nicephorus 
Phocas,  are  not  classical,  but  rather  frigid  as  poetry ; 
yet  they  are  far  less  barbarous  than  any  Latin  poetry 
of  the  seventh  and  tenth  centuries.  The  Greek  of  Leo 
the  Deacon  in  the  tenth  century  does  not  differ  from 
Xenophon's,  from  whom  he  is  separated  by  more  than 
thirteen  centuries,  so  much  as  the  English  of  Langland 
differs  from  that  of  Milton.  The  prolongation  of  the 
Greek  language  over  2800  years  from  Homer  to  Tri- 
coupi,  its  continual  epochs  of  revival,  purification,  and 
ultimate  return  upon  its  own  classical  type,  are  among 
the  most  extraordinary  facts  in  the  evolution  of  human 
thought.  And  the  persistence  of  the  same  written  litera- 
ture at  Constantinople  for  at  least  twenty  centuries  is 
without  parallel,  at  least  in  Europe. 

Happily  our  most  recent  historians  are  in  the  main 
agreed  as  to  the  essential  epochs  and  the  true  heroes  of 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  365 

Byzantine  history.  It  is  agreed  that  from  the  age  of 
Justinian  to  the  Crusades  the  traditions  of  law,  adminis- 
tration, Greek  literature,  commerce,  and  artistic  manu- 
factures were  mainly  preserved  to  Europe  by  the 
Roman  Empire  of  the  Bosphorus.  It  is  agreed  that 
for  all  active  ends  the  Empire  was  extinguished  by  the 
Fourth  Crusade,  and  had  long  been  in  an  exhausted 
condition  even  at  the  opening  of  the  First  Crusade. 
The  Isaurian  and  Basilian  dynasties,  that  is  the  eighth, 
ninth,  tenth,  and  part  of  the  eleventh  centuries,  were 
epochs  on  the  whole  of  valour,  able  government,  pros- 
perity, and  civilisation,  if  compared  with  the  condition 
of  what  used  to  be  called  the  dark  ages  of  Europe. 
These  centuries,  with  the  reigns  of  Justinian  and  Hera- 
clius  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  constitute  an 
epoch  which  is  worthy  to  rank  with  the  Roman  Empire 
from  Julius  to  Theodosius  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  with  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  from  Otto  the  Great 
to  Frederick  II.  The  Roman  Empire  of  Charlemagne, 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire  of  Otto,  both  in  substance 
and  in  ceremonial,  were  much  more  truly  imitations 
and  rivals  of  the  Roman  Empire  of  the  Bosphorus 
than  they  were  revivals  of  the  State  of  Augustus  and 
Trajan  ;  of  whom  all  real  memory  was  entirely  lost  in 
the  eighth  century,  whom,  as  heathens  without  the 
semblance  of  Church  or  Patriarch,  it  was  impossible 
that  Franks  and  Saxons  should  imitate  or  approve. 

At  the  close  of  his  second  volume  Professor  Bury 
sums  up  the  function  of  the  later  Roman  Empire  under 
the  five  following  heads,  of  which  his  whole  work  is  an 
illustration  and  commentary  : — 

I.  It  was  the  bulwark  of  Europe  against  the  Asiatic 
danger ; 


366  Till-;    CITY    IN     HISTORY 

2.  It  kept  alive  Greek  and  Roman  culture  ; 

3.  It  maintained  European  commerce  ; 

4.  It  preserved  the  idea  of  the  Roman  Empire  ; 

5.  It  embodied  a  principle  of  permanence. 

To  these  may  be  added  the  following  : — 

(a)  It  was  the  direct  source  of  civilisation  to  the 

whole  of  the  Balkan  peninsula,  and  to  all  Europe 
east  of  the  Vistula  and  the  Carpathians  ; 

(b)  It  was  the  type  of  a  State  Church — a  spiritual 

power  dependent  on  and  co-operating  with  the 
sovereign  power,  and  not,  like  the  Catholic 
Church,  independent  and  often  antagonistic. 

The  Empire  of  New  Rome  did  much  more  than  pre- 
serve the  idea  of  the  Roman  Empire.  It  prolonged  the 
Roman  Empire  itself  in  a  new,  and  even  in  some 
respects,  a  more  developed  form.  As  Mr.  Freeman 
well  puts  it,  '  the  Eastern  Empire  is  the  surest  witness 
to  the  unity  of  history,'  the  most  complete  answer  to 
the  conventional  opposition  between  'ancient'  and 
'  modern '  history.  That  mysterious  gulf — that  unex- 
plained paralysis — which,  we  are  told,  occurred  in  the 
history  of  European  civilisation  about  the  fifth  century, 
and  was  hardly  removed  by  the  ninth  or  tenth,  has  no 
existence  whatever  if  we  trace  the  internal  condition 
of  New  Rome  from  the  age  of  Theodosius  to  the  age  of 
Basil  II. 

We  are  so  greatly  influenced  by  literary  standards 
and  classical  art  that  we  hasten  to  condemn  an  age  in 
which  we  find  these  decay.  It  is  quite  true  that  pure 
Latinity,  elegant  Greek,  and  Attic  art  were  not  to  be 
found  in  New  Rome,  and  seemed  to  have  perished  with 
the  coming  of  the  Huns  and  the  Goths.  But  this  did 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  367 

not  form  the  whole  of  civilisation  or  even  the  bulk  of  it. 
In  many  things  the  civilisation  of  the  Byzantine  Empire 
was  far  higher  than  the  civilisation  of  the  Augustan 
Empire.  The  Court  of  Justinian  or  of  Leo  III.,  or  of 
Irene,  of  Theophilus,  of  Basil  I.,  or  Constantine  Porphy- 
rogennetus,  would  have  been  considered  in  the  Middle 
Ages  far  more  like  civilised  life  than  the  courts  of  Nero, 
Hadrian,  or  Diocletian.  In  many  of  the  most  essential 
features  of  civil  administration,  the  governments  of 
Justinian,  of  the  Iconoclast  and  Macedonian  dynasties, 
were  really  (in  spite  of  barbarous  punishments,  tyranny, 
and  extortion)  a  great  improvement  on  the  imperialism 
of  the  Caesars  on  the  Tiber. 

Obviously  the  religious,  moral,  and  domestic  life — 
bad  as  it  was  from  our  standard — was  better  than  that 
which  is  described  by  Juvenal  and  Tacitus,  and  was 
better  than  that  of  the  greater  part  of  Europe  in  the 
centuries  between  the  fifth  and  the  tenth.  And  in 
matters  of  taste,  it  is  plain  that  those  only  can  speak 
of  the  '  servile  debasement '  of  Byzantine  art  who  have 
never  traced  the  influence  upon  Europe  of  the  in- 
dustries, manufactures,  inventions,  and  arts,  which  had 
their  seat  in  Constantinople,  who  have  not  studied 
descriptions  of  the  great  Palace  beside  the  Hippo- 
drome, of  the  Boucoleon  and  Blachernae,  and  who 
know  nothing  of  S.  Sophia,  S.  Irene,  SS.  Sergius  and 
Bacchus,  the  Church  Tes  Choras,  and  all  the  remains 
of  architectural  and  decorative  skill  that  extend  in 
unbroken  series  from  the  age  of  Justinian  to  the 
Crusades.  The  vast  administrative,  legal,  and  military 
organisation  of  Augustus  and  Trajan  no  more  perished 
in  the  sack  of  Rome  than  did  the  language,  the  culture, 
and  the  aesthetic  aptitude  of  the  Greco-Roman  world. 
Both  took  new  forms  ;  they  did  not  perish. 


368  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

After  all  that  has  been  done  by  Finlay,  Freeman, 
Bury,  and  Pears  within  the  last  generation,  as  well  as 
by  scholars  in  other  countries,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt 
that  this  is  henceforth  one  of  the  cardinal  truths  of 
European  history.  Mr.  Bury's  five  propositions  as  to 
the  functions  of  the  later  Roman  Empire  are  perfectly 
true,  and  may  be  emphasised  and  extended  rather  than 
qualified  or  diminished.  What  we  now  especially  need 
is  to  have  it  explained  in  detail  how  these  results  came 
about.  We  want  the  inner,  economic,  social,  bureau- 
cratic, industrial,  and  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  Empire 
— not  so  much  its  court  annals  or  its  dynastic  revolu- 
tions. We  have  had  the  imperial  and  political  history 
traced  in  sufficient  fulness ;  the  administrative  and 
organic  life  of  the  society  is  what  we  now  need  to 
grasp  and  explore.  This  is  obviously  a  most  complex 
and  difficult  task,  only  to  be  achieved  by  indirect  means 
and  the  study  of  a  variety  of  sources.  The  art,  the 
industry,  the  trade,  the  manners,  the  statistics,  the  law, 
the  theology,  the  political  and  civic  institutions  of  the 
Roman  Empire  from  the  age  of  Heraclius  to  that  of 
the  Comneni  is  what  we  now  need  to  explore.  And  it 
is  a  field  in  which  English  scholars,  apart  from  Finlay, 
Bury,  and  some  theologians,  have  done  little. 

Especially  we  need  a  History  of  Byzantine  Chris- 
tianity, written  in  the  spirit  of  Milman — from  the  point 
of  view  of  an  enlightened  historian  and  not  of  an  official 
Churchman.  Almost  everything  that  we  have  yet  got 
on  the  subject  of  the  Byzantine  Church  is  insensibly 
coloured  by  the  Catholic  or  anti-Catholic  bias.  A 
history  of  Byzantine  art,  of  Byzantine  literature  and 
language,  of  Byzantine  manners,  commerce,  law,  and 
municipal  organisation  as  these  existed  between  Justi- 
nian and  Basil,  'the  slayer  of  Bulgarians' — a  period 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  369 

of  five  centuries — would  enable  us  to  answer  the  enigma 
of  Constantinople.  On  the  continent  Krause,  Heyd, 
Hopf,  Gfrorer,  Salzenburg,  Mordtmann,  Rambaud, 
Sabatier,  de  Saulcy,  Labarte,  Schlumberger,  Bayet, 
Drapeyron,  De  Muralt,  Riant,  as  well  as  many  Greek, 
Russian,  and  Oriental  scholars,  have  worked  in  these 
mines.  Mr.  Oman  has  given  us  a  useful  summary  of 
Byzantine  history  in  the  series  called  The  Story  of  the 
Nations.  But  in  England,  since  Finlay,  we  have  had 
little  of  original  work  except  from  Mr.  Bury,  who  has 
yet  not  gone  further  than  the  eighth  century.  The 
most  interesting  and  perhaps  the  most  obscure  period 
of  all  is  the  Basilian  dynasty,  from  A.D.  867-1057.  And 
on  this  we  sorely  need  accessible  guidance.  All  that 
Gibbon  has  to  tell  us  of  these  two  hundred  years  is 
contained  in  about  one  hundred  pages,  and  Finlay  has 
compressed  his  narrative  into  rather  more  than  twice 
that  space. 

When  we  have  completely  explored  these  various 
subjects  we  may  be  able  to  answer  the  problems : 
(i)  How  did  the  Roman  Empire  maintain  itself  at 
Constantinople  for  eleven  centuries?  (2)  Why  was  it 
able  for  eight  centuries  to  .resist  not  only  the  Western 
but  the  Eastern  invasions,  before  which  every  other  city 
and  kingdom  fell  ?  (3)  Why  was  Constantinople  for 
five  centuries  the  most  populous,  wealthy,  and  civilised 
city  in  Europe  ? 

The  answer  in  general  is  a  somewhat  complicated  one 
of  several  terms.  First,  the  Roman  Empire  removed 
itself  to  the  strongest  and  most  dominant  spot  in  all 
Europe.  Next,  it  evolved  a  wholly  new  organisation : 
centralised,  legalised,  and  industrial.  It  founded  the  most 
wonderful  bureaucracy  ever  known.  It  developed  a 
maritime  ascendency,  and  a  world-wide  commerce.  It 

2  A 


370  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

eliminated  every  vestige  of  provincial,  national,  and 
race  prejudice,  and  called  every  subject  man  from  Sicily 
to  the  Euphrates  a  Roman  and  nothing  else.  And 
lastly,  and  perhaps  mainly,  it  became  the  first,  and  for 
ages  the  only,  Christian  Empire,  having  a  powerful 
Church,  which  was  its  faithful  and  loyal  instrument, 
on  whose  mysterious  prestige  it  rested,  and  which  it 
always  treated  as  part  of  itself. 

1.  Nothing  further  need   be  said  as  to   the  unique 
source  of  strength,  both  for  offence  and  for  defence,  which 
the  genius  of  Constantine  discovered  on  the  Bosphorus. 
The  removal  of  the  seat  of  empire  from  the  Tiber  to 
the  Bosphorus  was  the  only  mode  in  which  the  Empire 
could  have  been  preserved,  whilst,  at  the  same  time, 
this   made   possible  its   political,   religious,  and  moral 
transformation.      The  exact  steps,  details,  and  ultimate 
type  of  this  transformation  are  precisely  the  points  on 
which  we  need  light.     We  see  the  stupendous  machine 
which  this  bureaucracy  and  State  Church  became,  but 
we  know  very  little  about  its  actual  working  and  its 
inner  life.     We  judge  its  power  by  results  only,  and  by 
the  startling   paradox  that  the  machinery  of  a  most 
disparate   organism    goes   on   working  undisturbed   by 
fatuity,    strife,    and    anarchy   in    the   supreme   centre. 
Whatever   the   vices   and   follies   which   raged   in    the 
imperial   palaces  for   generations   together,   disciplined 
and  well-armed  troops,  powerful  navies,  military  engines 
and  stores,  skilful  generals,  able  governors,  and  expert 
diplomatists,  rise  up  time  after  time  in  infinite  succession 
to  save  the  empire,  hold  it  together,  restore  its  losses, 
and  increase  its  wealth,  and  this  over  the  whole  period 
of  eight  centuries  from  Theodosius  to  Isaac  Angelus. 

2.  The  material  source  of  this  strength  in  the  empire 
was  primarily  its  sea-power  and  its  command  for  five 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  371 

centuries  of  the  commerce  of  the  whole  Mediterranean. 
When  we  study  the  campaigns  of  Heraclius  and  of 
Nicephorus,  when  we  follow  in  Leo  the  Deacon  the 
great  expedition  to  recover  Crete,  we  are  struck  with 
the  vast  maritime  resources,  the  engines  and  ships  of 
scientific  war  which  the  empire  possessed  in  the  seventh 
and  tenth  centuries.  Nothing  in  Europe  at  that  date 
could  produce  any  such  sea-power.  As  Nicephorus 
Phocas  very  fairly  told  the  angry  envoy  of  Otto,  he 
could  lay  in  ashes  any  sea-board  town  of  the  Medi- 
terranean. When  the  cities  of  Italy  succeeded  to  the 
commerce  of  Constantinople,  they  held  it  in  shares  and 
fought  for  it  amongst  themselves.  But  until  the  rise 
of  Venice,  Pisa,  and  Palermo,  Constantinople  ruled  the 
seas  from  Sicily  to  Rhodes,  and  relatively  to  her  con- 
temporaries with  a  far  more  complete  supremacy. 

3.  It  was  this  maritime  ascendency,  this  central 
position  in  the  Bosphorus,  and  this  vast  Mediterranean 
commerce  which  was  the  foundation  of  the  wealth  of 
the  empire — a  wealth  which,  relatively  to  its  age,  ex- 
ceeded even  the  wealth  and  maritime  ascendency  of 
England  in  our  day,  which  for  eight  centuries  hardly 
ever  suffered  a  collapse,  and  was  continually  being 
renewed.  We  must  discount  the  petulant  sneers  of  the 
irritable  Bishop  Luitprand,  when  baffled  by  the  fierce 
Nicephorus.  The  silk  industry,  the  embroidery,  the 
mosaic,  the  enamel,  the  metal  work,  the  ivory  carving, 
the  architecture,  the  military  engineering,  the  artillery, 
the  marine  appliances,  the  shipbuilding  art ;  the  trade 
in  corn,  spices,  oil,  and  wine ;  the  manuscripts,  the 
illuminations  of  Byzantium,  far  surpassed  anything  else 
in  Europe  to  be  found  in  the  epoch  between  the  reign 
of  Justinian  and  the  rise  of  the  Italian  cities.  Much  of 
what  we  call  mediaeval  art  decoration  and  art  fabrics 


372  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

had  their  real  origin,  both  industrial  and  aesthetic,  on 
the  Bosphorus,  or  were  carried  on  there  as  their  metro- 
politan centre. 

Nowhere  else  in  Europe  under  the  successors  of 
Clovis  and  Charlemagne  could  such  churches  have  been 
raised  as  those  of  the  Holy  Wisdom  and  Irene,  such 
palaces  as  that  beside  the  Hippodrome  or  the  Boucoleon, 
such  mighty  fortifications  as  those  which  stretched 
from  Blachernae  to  the  Propontis.  Nowhere  could 
Europe  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  produce  such 
enormous  wealth  as  that  possessed  by  Theophilus, 
Basil  I.,  or  Constantine  Porphyrogennetus,  or  equip 
such  fleets  and  armies  as  those  of  Nicephorus,  John 
Zimisces,  and  Basil  II.  We  are  accustomed  to  compare 
the  art  and  the  civilisation  of  the  Byzantine  Empire 
with  those  of  much  later  ages  than  its  own,  mainly 
because  we  have  nothing  else  wherewith  to  compare  it 
of  its  own  epoch.  If  we  honestly  set  it  against  the 
contemporary  state  of  Europe,  from  the  era  of  Justinian 
to  that  of  the  Crusades,  it  will  be  seen  to  be  not  only 
supreme  in  the  traditions  of  civilisation,  but  almost  to 
stand  alone.  In  the  eleventh  century,  without  doubt, 
Western  Europe  was  organised,  and  began  its  triumphant 
career,  with  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  feudal  organism 
in  full  development ;  and  from  that  date  the  Byzantine 
Empire  ceased  to  be  pre-eminent.  But  its  vast  re- 
sources and  the  splendour  and  civilised  arts  of  Con- 
stantinople still  continued  to  amaze  the  Crusaders,  even 
down  to  the  thirteenth  century. 

The  fact  is  that,  for  the  five  centuries  from  Justinian 
to  Isaac  Comnenus,  the  attacks  on  the  empire,  from  the 
European  side,  at  any  rate,  were  the  attacks  of  nomad, 
unorganised,  and  uncivilised  races  on  a  civilised  and 
highly-organised  empire.  And  in  spite  of  anarchy, 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  373 

corruption,  and  effeminacy  at  the  Byzantine  court, 
civilisation  and  wealth  told  in  every  contest.  Greek 
fire,  military  science,  enormous  resources,  and  the 
prestige  of  empire  always  bore  down  wild  valour  and 
predatory  enthusiasm.  Just  as  Russia  dominates  the 
Turkoman  tribes  of  Central  Asia,  as  Turkey  holds  back 
the  valiant  Arabs  of  her  eastern  frontier,  as  Egyptian 
natives  with  British  officers  easily  master  the  heroic 
Ghazis  of  the  Soudan — so  the  Roman  Empire  on  the 
Bosphorus  beat  back  Huns,  Avars,  Persians,  Slaves, 
Bulgarians,  Patzinaks,  and  Russians.  We  need  only  to 
study  the  history  of  Russia  and  of  Turkey  to  learn  how 
the  organising  ability,  the  resources,  and  material  arts 
of  great  empires  outweigh  folly,  vice,  and  corruption  in 
the  palace. 

4.  Of  course  a  succession  of  victorious  campaigns 
implies  a  succession  of  valiant  armies ;  and  there  is 
nothing  on  which  we  need  more  light  than  on  the  exact 
organisation  and  national  constituents  of  those  Roman 
armies  which  crushed  Chosroes,  Muaviah,  Crumn, 
Samuel,  and  Hamdanids.  They  are  called  convention- 
ally '  Greeks ' ;  but  during  the  Heraclian,  Isaurian,  and 
Basilian  dynasties  there  seem  to  have  been  no  Greeks 
at  all  in  the  land  forces.  The  armies  were  always 
composed  of  a  strange  collection  of  races,  with  different 
languages,  arms,  methods  of  fighting,  and  types  of 
civilisation.  They  were  often  magnificent  and  cour- 
ageous barbarians,  conspicuous  amongst  whom  were 
Scandinavians  and  English,  and  with  them  some  of 
the  most  warlike  braves  of  Asia  and  of  Europe.  The 
empire  made  no  attempt  to  destroy  their  national 
characteristics,  to  discourage  their  native  language, 
religion,  or  habits.  Each  force  was  told  off  to  the  service 
which  suited  it  best,  and  was  trained  in  the  use  of 


374  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

its  proper  weapons.  They  remained  distinct  from  each 
other,  and  wholly  distinct  from  the  civil  population. 
But  as  they  could  not  unite,  they  seldom  became  so 
great  a  danger  to  the  empire  as  the  Praetorian  guard  of 
the  Roman  army.  The  organisation  and  management 
of  such  a  heterogeneous  body  of  mercenary  braves 
required  extraordinary  skill ;  but  it  was  just  this  skill 
which  the  rulers  of  Byzantium  possessed.  The  bond  of 
the  whole  was  the  tradition  of  discipline  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  serving  the  Roman  Emperor. 

The  modern  history  of  Russia,  and  still  more  the 
native  armies  of  the  British  Empire,  will  enable  us  to 
understand  how  the  work  of  consolidation  was  effected. 
The  Queen's  dominions  are  at  this  hour  defended  by 
men  of  almost  every  race,  colour,  language,  religion, 
costume,  and  habits.  And  we  may  imagine  the  com- 
posite character  of  the  Byzantine  armies,  if  we  reflect 
how  distant  wars  are  carried  on  in  the  name  of  Victoria 
by  Hindoos,  Musulmans,  Pathans,  Ghoorkas,  Afghans, 
Egyptians,  Soudanese,  Zanzibaris,  Negroes,  Nubians, 
Zulus,  Kaffirs,  and  West  Indians,  using  their  native 
languages,  retaining  their  national  habits,  and,  to  a 
great  extent,  their  native  costume.  The  Roman  Empire 
was  maintained  from  its  centre  on  the  Bosphorus,  some- 
what as  the  British  Empire  is  maintained  from  its  centre 
on  the  Thames,  by  wealth,  maritime  ascendency,  the 
traditions  of  empire,  and  organising  capacity — always 
with  the  great  difference  that  there  was  no  purely  Roman 
nucleus  as  there  is  a  purely  British  nucleus,  and  also 
that  the  soldiery  of  the  Roman  Empire  had  no  common 
armament,  and  was  not  officered  by  men  of  the 
dominant  race,  but  by  capable  leaders  indifferently 
picked  from  any  race,  except  the  Latin  or  the  Greek. 
Dominant  race  there  was  none ;  nation  there  was  none. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  375 

Roman  meant  subject  of  the  Emperor  ;  Emperor  meant 
the  chief  in  the  vermilion  buskins,  installed  in  the 
Palace  on  the  Bosphorus,  and  duly  crowned  by  the 
Orthodox  Patriarch  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Wisdom. 
5.  Here  we  reach  the  last,  as  I  venture  to  think, 
the  main  element  of  strength  in  the  Empire  of  New 
Rome — its  alliance  with,  or  rather  its  possession  of,  the 
Orthodox  Church.  The  Roman  Empire  at  Constanti- 
nople was  really,  if  not  in  style,  a  Holy  Roman  Empire. 
The  Patriarch  was  one  of  its  officials.  The  venerable 
Church  of  the  Holy  Wisdom  was  almost  the  private 
chapel  of  the  Emperor ;  the  Emperor's  palace  may 
almost  be  described  as  the  Vatican  of  Byzantium. 
The  relations  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Patriarch 
were  wholly  different  from  the  relations  between  the 
Emperor  at  Aachen  and  the  Pope.  Instead  of  being 
separated  by  a  thousand  miles  and  many  tribes  and 
peoples,  the  Emperor  of  the  Bosphorus  resided  in  the 
same  group  of  buildings,  worshipped,  and  was  adored 
in  the  same  metropolitan  temple,  and  sat  in  the  same 
council-hall  with  his  Patriarch,  who  was  practically  one 
of  his  great  officers  of  State.  All  students  of  the 
Carolingian  or  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  know  how 
immensely  Pipin,  Charles,  the  Henrys,  and  the  Ottos 
were  strengthened  by  the  support  of  the  Popes  from 
Zacharias  to  Victor  II.  But  the  Papacy  was  a  very 
intermittent,,  uncertain,  and  exacting  bulwark  of  the 
Empire,  and  after  the  advent  of  Hildebrand,  in  the 
eleventh  century,  it  was  usually  the  open  or  secret 
enemy  of  the  Empire.  The  Catholic  Church  was 
always  the  co-equal,  usually  the  jealous  rival,  often  the 
irreconcilable  foe  of  the  Emperor.  It  never  was  a  State 
Church,  and  rarely,  until  the  fourteenth  century,  was  an 
official  and  obsequious  minister  of  any  emperor  or  king. 


376  THE   CITY    IN    HISTOK\ 

But  the  Orthodox  Church  of  Constantinople,  from 
first  to  last,  was  a  State  Church,  part  of  the  State, 
servant  of  the  State.  There  were,  of  course,  rebel 
patriarchs,  ambitious,  independent,  factious,  and  deeply 
spiritual  patriarchs.  There  were  whole  reigns  and 
dynasties  when  Emperor  and  Patriarch  represented  op- 
posite opinions.  But  all  this  was  trifling  compared  with 
the  independent  and  hostile  attitude  of  the  Papacy  to 
the  Temporal  Power.  The  Catholic  Church  represented 
a  Spiritual  Power  independent  of  any  sovereign,  with 
a  range  of  influence  not  conterminous  with  that  of  any 
sovereign.  That  was  its  strength,  its  glory,  its  menace 
to  the  Temporal  Power.  The  Orthodox  Church  repre- 
sented a  spiritual  authority,  the  minister  of  the  sove- 
reign, directing  the  conscience  of  the  subjects  of  the 
sovereign,  and  in  theory  of  no  others.  The  Orthodox 
Church  was  the  ideal  State  Church,  and  for  a  thousand 
years  it  deeply  affected  the  history  of  the  Byzantine 
Empire  for  evil  and  for  good.  It  more  than  realised 
Dante's  dream  in  the  De  Monarchici,  a  dream  which 
the  essence  of  Catholicism  and  the  traditions  of  the 
Papacy  made  impossible  in  the  West.  It  constituted 
a  real  and  not  a  titular  Holy  Roman  Empire  in  the 
East 

Ruinous  to  religion,  morality,  and  freedom  as  was 
this  dependence  of  Church  on  the  sovereign,  it  gave 
the  sovereign  an  immense  and  permanent  strength. 
We  can  see  to-day  what  overwhelming  force  is  given 
to  the  rulers  of  the  two  great  empires  of  Eastern 
Europe,  who  are  both  absolute  heads  of  the  religious 
organisation  of  their  respective  dominions.  Now  the 
Orthodox  Church  of  the  Byzantine  Empire  was  a  more 
powerful  spiritual  authority  than  the  Russian  Church, 
if  not  quite  so  abject  a  servant  of  the  Roman  Emperor 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  377 

as  the  Russian  Church  is  of  the  Czar.  And  it  was 
no  doubt  much  more  completely  under  the  control  of 
the  Emperor  than  the  imams  and  softas  of  Stamboul  are 
under  the  control  of  the  Padishah.  The  Roman  Emperor, 
in  spite  of  his  vices,  origin,  or  character,  even  in  the  midst 
of  the  Iconoclast  struggle,  was  invested  in  the  eyes  of 
his  Orthodox  subjects  with  that  sacred  halo  which 
still  surrounds  Czar  and  Sultan,  and  which  is  the  main 
source  of  their  autocratic  power.  It  was  this  sacred 
character,  a  character  which  the  de  facto  Emperor 
possessed  from  the  hour  of  his  coronation  in  St.  Sophia 
until  the  day  when  he  died,  was  deposed,  or  blinded, 
which  held  together  an  empire  of  such  strangely  hetero- 
geneous elements,  permeated  with  such  forces  of  anarchy 
and  confusion.  Christians  in  the  West  contemn,  and 
perhaps  with  justice,  the  servility,  idolatry,  and  formal- 
ism of  the  Greek  priesthood.  They  may  be  right  when 
they  tell  us  that  the  essence  of  Greek  ritualism  is  only 
a  debased  kind  of  paganism.  But  the  Orthodox  Church 
is  still  a  great  political  force ;  and  in  the  Byzantine 
Empire  it  was  a  political  force  perhaps  greater  than 
any  other  of  which  we  have  extant  examples. 

If,  then,  we  have  to  answer  the  historical  problem — 
how  was  it  that  the  Roman  Empire  succeeded  in  pro- 
longing its  existence  for  a  thousand  years  after  its  final 
transfer  to  the  Bosphorus,  in  the  face  of  tremendous  and, 
it  seemed,  insurmountable  difficulties? — the  answer  is, 
by  a  happy  combination  of  three  concurrent  forces. 
The  first  was  the  prestige  of  the  name  and  traditions 
of  Rome.  The  second  was  the  wonderful  language  of 
Hellas,  and  the  versatility  and  astuteness  of  the  Greek 
genius.  The  third  was  the  organisation  of  an  Orthodox 
Church,  which,  on  the  one  hand,  had  a  hold  over  the 
mass  of  the  people  hardly  ever  acquired  even  by  the 


3/8  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

Church  Catholic,  which,  on  the  other  hand,  was  willing 
to  become  the  faithful  minister  of  an  empire  that  it 
consecrated  and  venerated  as  its  supreme  master  on 
earth.  In  one  sense  the  empire  was  not  strictly  Roman, 
not  Greek,  not  Holy.  But  by  a  marvellous  combina- 
tion of  Roman  tradition,  Greek  genius,  and  Orthodox 
sanctity  it  maintained  itself  erect  for  a  thousand  years. 

II.   The  Political  Problem 

The  modern  political  problem  presented  by  Con- 
stantinople is  not  in  the  least  yet  solved  ;  time  has  not 
removed  it ;  and  recent  events  have  not  made  it  easier. 
Constantinople  still  remains,  and  ever  must  remain,  one  of 
the  most  important  ports  in  the  whole  world.  In  the 
hands  of  a  great  military  and  naval  power,  it  must  always 
be  one  of  the  most  dominant  capital  cities  in  the  whole 
world.  All  that  Cronstadt  is  in  the  Baltic,  or  Gibraltar 
in  the  Western,  or  Toulon  in  the  Northern,  or  Malta 
in  the  Southern,  Mediterranean — all  these  together  and 
more — Constantinople  might  be  made  by  a  first-class 
power.  Colonel  F.  V.  Greene,  of  the  United  States 
Army,  in  his  Russian  Campaigns  in  Turkey,  1877-78, 
speaking  of  the  first  lines  of  Turkish  defence,  between 
the  Black  Sea  at  Lake  Derkos  and  the  Sea  of  Marmora, 
calls  this  position  (nearly  that  of  the  wall  of  Anastasius 
in  the  fifth  century)  '  a  place  of  vastly  greater  strength 
than  Plevna.'  He  adds :  '  No  other  capital  in  the 
world  possesses  such  a  line  of  defence,  and  when 
completed,  armed,  and  garrisoned  in  sufficient  strength 
(about  seventy-five  thousand  men),  it  may  fairly  be 
deemed  impregnable,  except  to  a  nation  possessing  a 
navy  capable  of  controlling  the  Black  Sea  and  Sea  of 
Marmora,  and  a  fleet  of  transports  sufficient  to  land 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  379 

troops  in  rear  of  its  flanks.'  (Pp.  427,  428.)  That  is 
to  say,  in  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  first  of  living 
authorities,  who  followed  the  Russian  staff  in  the  last 
war,  Constantinople  is  practically  impregnable  in  the 
hands  of  a  first-class  military  and  naval  power. 

But  Constantinople  is  not  merely  impregnable  on 
the  defensive  side,  in  the  hands  of  such  a  power,  but 
if  adequately  manned  and  equipped,  it  is  equally  strong 
for  offensive  purposes  ;  and.  with  the  Bosphorus  and 
the  Hellespont  duly  fortified,  it  would  command  the 
Black  Sea,  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  and  the  ^gean  Sea. 
Much  more  than  this :  it  would  practically  dominate 
Asia  Minor  ;  for,  as  old  Busbecq  says,  '  Constantinople 
stands  in  Europe,  but  it  faces  Asia.'  It  faces  Asia, 
and  it  dominates  Asia  Minor ;  and,  if  possessed  by  a 
first-class  military  and  naval  power  of  ambitious  and 
aggressive  spirit,  the  possession  of  Constantinople  in- 
volves the  practical  control  of  Asia  Minor,  of  the  entire 
Levant,  and,  but  for  Cyprus  and  Malta,  of  North  Africa 
and  the  whole  Syrian  coast. 

Nor  is  this  all.  In  the  hands  of  a  first-class  military 
and  naval  power,  Constantinople  must  dominate  the 
Balkan  peninsula  and  the  whole  of  Greece.  With  an 
impregnable  capital,  and  the  powerful  navy  which  the 
wonderful  marine  opportunities  of  Constantinople  render 
an  inevitable  possession  to  any  great  power,  the  rival 
races  and  petty  kingdoms  of  the  peninsula  would  all 
alike  become  mere  dependencies  or  provinces.  Here, 
then,  we  reach  the  full  limit  of  the  possible  issue. 
Turkey  is  now  no  longer  a  maritime  power  of  any 
account.  Her  magnificent  soldiery  forms  no  longer  a 
menace  to  any  European  power,  however  small  ;  and, 
if  it  suffices  to  hold  the  lines  of  Constantinople  on 
the  Balkan  side  (which  is  not  absolutely  certain),  it 


380  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

is  liable  at  any  moment  to  be  paralysed  by  an  enemy 
on  the  flank  who  could  command  the  Black  Sea  or 
the  Sea  of  Marmora.  Of  course,  the  Bosphorus  has 
lost  its  ancient  importance  as  a  defence  ;  for  a  northern 
invader  commanding  the  Black  Sea  could  easily  descend 
on  the  heights  above  Pera,  and  with  Pera  in  the  hands 
of  an  enemy,  Stamboul  is  now  indefensible.  That  is 
to  say,  Constantinople  is  no  longer  impregnable,  or 
even  defensible,  without  a  first-class  fleet.  Therefore 
neither  Turkey,  nor  Bulgaria,  nor  Greece,  nor  any  other 
small  power,  could  have  any  but  a  precarious  hold  on 
it,  in  the  absence  of  a  very  powerful  fleet  of  some  ally. 

From  these  conditions  the  following  consequences 
result.  Turkey  can  hold  Constantinople  as  her  capital 
with  absolute  security  against  any  minor  power.  She 
could  not  hold  it  against  Russia  having  a  predominant 
fleet  in  the  Black  Sea,  unless  she  received  by  alliance 
the  support  of  a  powerful  navy.  With  the  support  of 
a  powerful  fleet,  and  her  own  reconstituted  army  and 
restored  financial  and  administrative  condition,  she 
might  hold  Constantinople  indefinitely  against  all  the 
resources  of  Russia.  It  is  perfectly  plain  that  no  minor 
power,  even  if  placed  in  Stamboul,  could  hold  it  except 
by  sufferance  ;  certainly  neither  Bulgaria,  nor  Greece, 
nor  Servia,  perhaps  hardly  Austria,  unless  she  enor- 
mously developed  her  fleet,  and  transformed  her  entire 
empire.  Turkey,  as  planted  at  present  on  the  Bos- 
phorus, is  not  a  menace  to  any  other  power.  The 
powers  with  which  she  is  surrounded  are  intensely 
jealous  of  each  other ;  and  by  race,  religion,  traditions, 
and  aspirations,  incapable  of  permanent  amalgamation. 

From  the  national  and  religious  side  the  problem 
is  most  complex  and  menacing.  Even  in  Constanti- 
nople the  Moslems  are  a  minority  of  the  population  ; 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  381 

and  still  more  decidedly  so  in  the  other  European 
provinces.  But  in  most  of  the  Asiatic  provinces, 
Moslems  are  a  majority,  and  in  almost  all  they  are 
enormously  superior  in  effective  strength  to  any  other 
single  community.  To  put  aside  Syrians,  Arabs, 
Egyptians,  Jews,  and  other  non-Christian  populations, 
there  are,  within  the  more  western  parts  of  the  Turkish 
Empire,  Bulgarians,  Greeks,  Albanians,  various  Sla- 
vonian peoples,  Armenians,  and  Levantine  Catholics, 
not  so  very  unequally  balanced  in  effective  force  and 
national  ambition  ;  all  intensely  averse  to  submit  to 
the  control  of  any  one  amongst  the  rest,  and  unwilling 
to  combine  with  each  other.  Each  watches  the  other 
with  jealousy,  suspicion,  antipathy,  and  insatiable  desire 
to  domineer. 

The  habit  of  five  centuries  and  the  hope  of  ultimate 
triumph  lead  all  of  them  to  submit,  with  continual  out- 
breaks and  outcries,  to  the  qualified  rule  of  the  Turk. 
But  place  any  one  of  this  motley  throng  of  nationalities 
in  the  place  of  the  Sultan,  and  a  general  confusion  would 
arise.  The  Greek  would  not  accept  the  Bulgarian  as 
his  master,  nor  the  Bulgarian  the  Greek ;  the  Albanians 
would  submit  to  neither ;  the  Armenians  would  seize 
the  first  moment  of  striking  in  for  themselves  ;  and  the 
Italian  and  Levantine  Catholics  would  certainly  assert 
their  claims.  No  one  of  all  those  rival  nationalities, 
creeds,  and  populations  could  for  a  moment  maintain 
their  ascendency.  No  one  of  them  has  the  smallest 
title  either  from  tradition,  numbers,  or  proved  capacity, 
to  pretend  to  the  sceptre  of  the  Bosphorus — and  not 
one  of  them  could  hold  it  for  a  day  against  Russia,  if 
she  chose  to  take  it. 

Assume  that  Russia  has  succeeded  Turkey  in  posses- 
sion of  Constantinople,  the  Bosphorus,  and  the  Helles- 


382  Till     CITY    IX    HISTORY 

pont.  What  is  the  result?  She  would  immediately 
make  her  southern  capital  impregnable,  as  Colonel 
Greene  says,  '  with  a  line  of  defence  such  as  no  other 
capital  in  the  world  possesses.'  She  would  make  it 
stronger  than  Cronstadt  or  Sebastopol,  and  place  there 
one  of  the  most  powerful  arsenals  in  the  world.  With 
a  great  navy  in  sole  command  of  the  Euxine,  the  Bos- 
phorus,  the  Marmora,  and  the  Hellespont,  with  a  vast 
expanse  of  inland  waters  within  which  she  could  be 
neither  invested  nor  approached — for  nothing  would  be 
easier  than  to  make  the  Hellespont  absolutely  impass- 
able— Russia  would  possess  a  marine  base  such  as 
nothing  else  in  Europe  presents,  such  as  nothing  in 
European  history  records,  except  in  the  days  of  the 
Basilian  dynasty  and  the  Ottoman  Caliphs  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  With  such  an  unequalled  naval  base 
she  would  certainly  require  and  easily  secure  a  further 
marine  arsenal  in  the  Archipelago.  It  is  of  no  conse- 
quence whether  this  was  found  on  the  Greek  or  on  the 
Asiatic  side.  There  are  a  score  of  suitable  points.  An 
island  or  a  port  situated  somewhere  in  the  fiLgean  Sea 
between  Besika  Bay  and  the  Cyclades  would  be  a 
necessary  adjunct  and  an  easy  acquisition.  With  Russia 
having  the  sole  command  of  the  seas  that  wash  South- 
Eastern  Europe,  dominating  the  whole  south-eastern 
seaboard  from  a  chain  of  arsenals  stretching  from  Sebas- 
topol to  the  Greek  Archipelago,  the  entire  condition  of 
the  Mediterranean  would  be  transformed — let  us  say  at 
once — the  entire  condition  of  Europe  would  be  trans- 
formed. 

Has  the  British  public  fully  realised  the  enormous 
change  in  the  political  conditions  of  the  whole  Levant 
and  of  Europe  involved  in  the  installation  of  Russia  on 
the  Bosphorus  ?  We  are  accustomed  to  treat  the  settle- 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  383 

ment  of  the  Ottoman  in  Stamboul  as  a  matter  which  is 
no\v  of  very  minor  importance.  Why  so  ?  Because  the 
Turk  is  powerless  for  anything  but  precarious  defence, 
under  the  preponderant  menace  of  Russia  on  the  north, 
whilst  he  is  hemmed  in  by  ambitious  and  restless  neigh- 
bours in  his  last  ditch  in  the  Balkan  peninsula.  He 
cannot  fortify  the  Bosphorus  without  Russian  interfer- 
ence ;  he  cannot  maintain  his  government  in  Crete  with- 
out a  roar  of  indignation  from  Greece.  He  is  constantly 
harried  by  Bulgarians,  Servians,  Albanians,  Montene- 
grins, and  Epirots.  He  lives  for  ever  on  the  defensive, 
he  menaces  no  one  ;  and  no  one  is  afraid  of  him  in 
Europe — because  he  has  nothing  in  Europe  but  a 
shrunken  province,  and  practically  no  fleet. 

We  are  accustomed,  again,  to  treat  the  position  of 
Russia  in  the  Balkan  peninsula  as  one  of  influence  more 
or  less  continuous,  but  as  not  practically  affecting  the 
Eastern  Mediterranean  and  its  lands.  Russia  has  not 
yet  effected  any  real  footing  on  the  peninsula.  She 
finds  it  occupied  by  Roumania,  Bulgaria,  Servia,  Austria, 
Turkey,  and  Greece.  Over  these  Russia  exercises  an 
intermittent  influence,  but  never  controls  them  all  at  the 
same  time  ;  and  she  often  finds  one  or  more  of  them  in 
direct  opposition.  Accordingly,  we  do  not  regard  the 
Muscovite  as  dominant  in  the  Balkan  peninsula,  much 
less  in  the  Archipelago.  But  place  Russia  on  the 
wonderful  throne  of  the  Bosphorus,  with  the  inevitable 
addition  of  Adrianople  and  the  Maritza  Valley,  at  the 
very  least,  in  Southern  Roumelia,  and  the  whole  situa- 
tion is  transformed.  The  possession  of  Constantinople 
by  Russia,  with  her  enormous  resources  and  grand  navy, 
means  the  control  by  Russia  of  the  Bosphorus,  the 
Marmora,  the  Hellespont,  and,  at  least,  of  South-Eastern 
Roumelia. 


384  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

Could  it  stop  there?  Would  the  absolute  chief  of  an 
army  of  two  millions  and  a  half,  with  the  third  great 
navy  of  the  world,  fall  into  slumber  in  his  new  and 
resplendent  capital,  rebuild  the  Seraglio,  or  amuse  him- 
self in  Yildiz  Kiosk  ?  He  would  immediately  create  the 
second  great  navy  of  the  world,  and  for  all  Mediterra- 
nean purposes  his  navy  would  be  at  least  the  rival  of  the 
first.  How  long  would  Roumania  and  Bulgaria  remain 
their  own  masters  when  they  found  themselves  between 
his  countless  legions  on  the  Pruth  and  his  great  fleet  in 
the  Golden  Horn  ?  What  would  Servia  say  to  the 
change — or  Austria  ?  Would  the  Albanians  be  content  ? 
And  what  would  become  of  the  Musulmans  in  Rou- 
melia  ?  The  prospect  opens  at  least  five  or  six  inter- 
national imbroglios  with  knotty  problems  of  race, 
religion,  patriotism,  and  political  sympathies  and  anti- 
pathies. Any  one  of  these  is  enough  to  cause  a  Euro- 
pean crisis — and  even  an  embittered  war. 

In  the  long  run,  though  it  might  be  a  struggle  pro- 
longed for  a  century,  Russia  would  in  some  form  or 
other  command  or  control  the  entire  peninsula  from  the 
Danube  to  Cape  Matapan  ;  not,  perhaps,  counting  it  all 
strictly  in  Russian  territory,  but  being  dominant  therein 
as  is  Victoria  in  the  Indian  peninsula.  The  geographical 
conditions  of  Constantinople  are  so  extraordinary  ;  they 
offer  such  boundless  opportunities  to  a  first-class  military 
and  naval  power  ;  they  lie  so  curiously  ready  to  promote 
the  ambition  of  Russia,  that  the  advent  of  the  Czar  to 
the  capital  of  the  Sultan  would  produce  a  change  in 
Europe  greater  than  any  witnessed  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  absolute  monarch  of  a  hundred  millions, 
with  an  army  of  two  and  a  half  millions,  possessing  sole 
command  of  the  Black  Sea,  Bosphorus,  Marmora,  and 
Hellespont,  together  with  the  incomparable  naval  basis 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   CONSTANTINOPLE  385 

which  is  afforded  by  this  chain  of  four  inland  seas,  would 
unquestionably  be  supreme  master  of  the  whole  of 
Eastern  Europe,  which  would  then  extend  under  one 
sceptre  from  the  Arctic  Ocean  to  the  Greek  Archipelago. 

But  this  is  only  one-half  of  the  political  problem,  and 
perhaps  the  less  difficult  half.  There  is  the  Asiatic  side 
to  the  problem,  as  well  as  the  European  side.  Place  the 
Czar  in  the  Seraglio  and  what  is  to  become  of  the 
Padishah  ?  Is  he  to  retire  to  Scutari  in  his  barge,  and 
to  restore  the  palace  of  Selim,  which  we  know  as  hospital 
and  barracks  ?  Is  he  to  withdraw  to  Brusa  or  Smyrna, 
or  retire  at  once  to  Aleppo  or  Damascus  ?  How  long 
will  the  Russian  be  content  to  watch  across  the  sea  the 
minarets  in  Bithynia  and  the  mountains  of  Anatolia,  to 
look  upon  Abydos  from  Sestos  without  a  desire  to  pay 
a  visit  to  his  secular  rival  ?  Politicians  talk  with  a  light 
heart  of  hastening  the  departure  of  the  Moslem  from 
Europe.  But  what  do  they  propose  for  him  when  he  is 
withdrawn  into  Asia?  With  the  Czar  at  Kars,  and  under 
Ararat,  at  Constantinople  and  Gallipoli,  commanding 
the  whole  northern  coast  of  Asia  Minor  from  Batum  to 
Besika  Bay,  with  the  Armenians  raging  on  the  East  and 
the  Greeks  and  Levantine  Christians  on  the  West,  the 
Sultan  will  hardly  rest  more  tranquilly  in  Brusa  than 
he  does  to-day  in  Yildiz  Kiosk.  Are  the  millions  of 
Musulmans  in  Asia  Minor  to  be  exterminated  or  driven 
across  the  Euphrates  ?  What  is  to  be  the  end  of  this 
interminable  Turkish  problem,  and  is  the  twentieth 
century  to  install  a  new  crusade  ? 

All  these  things  are,  no  doubt,  very  distant  and 
entirely  uncertain.  But  they  are  possible  enough,  and 
would  give  the  statesmen  of  the  future  a  series  of  insol- 
uble problems.  It  would  be  needless  to  enlarge  on  the 
endless  complications  they  involve.  They  may  serve  to 

2  B 


386  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

convince  us  that  there  is  no  finality  in  this  Turkish  ques- 
tion. The  expulsion  of  the  Turk  from  Europe  leaves 
the  dilemma  more  acute  than  ever.  The  enthronement  of 
the  Russian  on  the  Bosphorus  settles  nothing,  concludes 
nothing,  and  can  satisfy  no  one.  It  offers,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  new  set  of  difficulties  and  contests,  more  ominous 
and  bitter  than  those  which  have  raged  for  a  hundred 
years  since  Catherine  II. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

PARIS   AS  AN    HISTORIC  CITY 

OF  historic  cities  in  Europe  of  the  first  rank  we  can 
count  but  four :  Rome,  Constantinople,  Paris,  London. 
For  in  the  first  rank  of  historic  cities  we  can  only  place 
those  capitals  which  have  been,  continuously  and  over  a 
long  succession  of  ages,  the  seats  of  national  movements 
dominating  the  history  of  Europe :  cities  which  have 
been  conspicuous  in  mass,  in  central  place,  and  in  vast 
extent  of  time.  Rome  first,  Constantinople  next,  stand 
far  before  all  other  European  cities  in  fulfilling  these 
conditions :  but  after  them  come  Paris  and  London. 
Such  fascinating  cities  as  Athens,  Florence,  Venice, 
Rouen,  Cologne,  Treves,  Prague,  or  Oxford — are  all 
either  far  inferior  in  size  and  national  importance,  or 
else  have  known  their  epochs  of  glory  only  to  die  away 
for  ages  into  small  and  local  pre-eminence.  Of  all  great 
capitals  in  the  world,  London  has  perhaps,  during  twelve 
centuries,  suffered  the  least  from  violent  shocks,  from 
war  and  breaks  in  its  history ;  and  it  may  be  said  to 
retain  the  most  complete  and  continuous  monumental 
record  for  that  period. 

In  the  modern  world,  Paris  is  the  only  capital  which 
can  be  placed  beside  London  as  an  historic  city  of  the 
first  rank.  The  modern  transformation  of  Paris  has 
been  even  more  destructive  of  the  past  than  the  modern 
transformation  of  London,  and,  at  the  same  time,  it  is 


388  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

much  more  brilliant:  so  that  what  remains  of  the  historic 
city  is  much  more  completely  screened  and  overpowered 
in  Paris  than  it  is  in  London.  Nor  has  Paris  any  ancient 
monuments  which  appeal  to  the  popular  imagination, 
with  such  direct  voice  as  do  our  Abbey,  and  our  great 
Hall  at  Westminster,  our  Tower,  our  Temple  Church, 
Lambeth  Palace,  and  the  Guildhall.  Yet  withal  it  may 
be  said  that,  in  a  larger  sense  of  the  term,  Paris  is  a  city 
of  even  richer  historic  memories  than  London  itself: 
richer,  that  is,  to  the  thoughtful  student  of  its  history, 
though  certainly  not  to  the  incurious  tourist.  If  we  take 
into  account  sites  as  well  as  extant  monuments,  if  we 
call  to  our  aid  topography  as  well  as  archaeology  ;  if  we 
follow  up  the  early  history  of  buildings  which  have  been 
replaced,  or  are  now  transformed  or  removed ;  if  we 
study  the  local  biography  of  Paris  from  the  days  of  Julius 
Caesar  to  the  days  of  Jules  GreVy  and  Sadi  Carnot — 
especially,  if  we  include  in  the  history  of  Paris  that  of  its 
suburbs — St.  Denis,  Vincennes,  St.  Cloud,  St.  Germain, 
Versailles, — then  the  history  of  Paris  is  even  richer,  more 
dramatic,  more  continuous  than  that  of  London  itself. 

Paris  is  by  at  least  a  century  older  than  London  in 
the  historical  record ;  for  it  now  has  almost  two  thousand 
years  of  continuous  annals.  Paris  was  a  more  important 
Roman  city  than  London.  It  has  far  more  extensive 
Roman  remains.  The  history  of  its  first  thousand  years, 
from  the  first  century  to  the  eleventh,  of  its  early  foun- 
dations, churches,  palaces,  and  walls,  is  far  more  com- 
plete and  trustworthy  than  anything  we  know  of  London. 
It  did  not  suffer  any  such  gap  or  blank  in  its  history, 
such  as  that  which  befell  London,  from  the  time  of  the 
Romans  until  the  settlement  of  the  Saxons.  The  fathers 
of  men  still  living  have  seen  at  Paris,  in  its  Bastille,  at 
St.  Denis,  in  Notre  Dame,  and  the  other  churches,  in  the 


PARIS  AS  AN   HISTORIC  CITY  389 

Tuileries,  in  Versailles,  and  old  Hotel  de  Ville,  relics  of 
the  past,  records,  works  of  art,  tombs,  and  statues,  before 
which  the  great  record  of  our  Abbey  and  our  Tower 
can  hardly  hold  their  own. 

The  great  era  of  destruction  began  little  more  than  a 
century  ago  :  the  great  era  of  restoration  little  more  than 
half  a  century  ago.  Paris,  too,  has  been  the  scene  of 
events  more  tremendous  and  more  extraordinary  than 
any  other  city  of  the  world,  if  we  except  Constantinople 
and  Rome.  London  never  endured  any  very  serious  or 
regular  siege.  Paris  has  endured  a  dozen  famous  sieges, 
culminating  in  what  is,  perhaps,  the  biggest  siege  re- 
corded in  history.  London  has  never  known  an  autocrat 
with  a  passion  for  building,  has  had  but  one  great  con- 
flagration, and  but  one  serious  insurrection.  Paris  has 
had  in  Louis  XIV.,  and  the  first  and  second  Empires  of 
the  Napoleons,  three  of  the  most  ambitious  despots  ever 
known  ;  and  in  a  hundred  years  has  had  four  most 
sanguinary  and  destructive  revolutions.  Battles,  sieges, 
massacres,  conflagrations,  civil  wars,  rebellions,  revolu- 
tions make  up  the  history  of  Paris  from  the  days  of  the 
Caesars  and  the  Franks  to  the  days  of  the  Terror  and 
the  Commune. 

All  this  makes  the  topographical  history  of  Paris  far 
more  copious  and  more  stirring  than  the  history  of 
London,  and  indeed  of  any  other  modern  city  what- 
ever. And  the  history  of  Paris  has  been  far  better  told 
than  the  history  of  any  other  city.  There  is  a  perfect 
library  about  the  history  of  Paris,  with  a  special  Museum, 
and  a  collection  of  80,000  volumes  and  70,000  engravings, 
devoted  to  that  one  subject.  The  histories  reach  over 
six  centuries,  from  the  work  of  Jean  de  Jandun,  the 
contemporary  of  Dante,  who  begins  his  work  about  Paris 
by  saying  '  that  it  is  more  like  Paradise  than  any  other 


390  THE  CITY  IN    HISTORY 

spot  on  earth' — (an  opinion,  by  the  way,  said  to  be 
shared  by  many  Americans  and  some  English) — and 
they  go  on  to  the  splendid  volumes  by  Hoffbauer, 
Fournier,  and  others,  called  Paris  a  travers  les  Ages :  a 
book,  I  may  say,  only  to  be  found  in  the  British  Museum 
and  a  few  public  libraries.  Till  the  appearance  of  Mr. 
Loftie's  History  of  London  (2  vols.  1883),  we  had  not  a 
single  scholarly  history  of  our  great  city.  But  for  more 
than  two  centuries  there  have  been  produced  a  long 
series  of  works  on  the  topography  and  monuments  of 
Paris.  And  we  have  now  a  splendid  series  of  treatises 
issued  by  the  Municipal  Council,  the  Histoire  Generate 
de  Paris,  begun  in  1865.  When  I  was  on  the  London 
County  Council,  I  endeavoured  to  induce  the  Council  to 
undertake  a  similar  work  for  London  ;  but  I  found  that, 
with  an  annual  expenditure  of  some  two  millions,  the 
Municipality  of  London  had  no  power  to  expend  a 
penny  on  such  an  object.1 

1  Amongst  other  valuable  books  of  history  and  illustration  are : 
Androuet  du  Cerceau,  Les  plus  excellent!  Bastimcnts  de  France,  2  vols.  fol. 
Paris,  1576. 

Israel  Silvestre,  Views  in  old  Paris,  fol.     Paris,  1665. 

Perelle,  Les  delices  de  Paris,  fol.     Paris,  1763. 

Piganiol,  Description  de  Paris.     Paris,  1742. 

Dulaure,  Histoire  de  Paris,  10  vols.  8vo.  Paris  (2nd  ed.),  1823,  with 
views  and  maps. 

De  Guilhermy,  Itineraire  archtologique  de  Paris,  1855. 

Lacroix,  Curiosites  de  la  Ville  de  Paris. 

Pernot,  Le  Vieux  Paris,  fol.    1838. 

A.  P.  Martial,  Ancien  Paris,  a  series  of  300  etchings,     Paris,  fol.  1866. 

D.  R.  Rochette,  Souvenirs  du  Vieux  Paris.     Paris,  1836,  fol. 

Destailleurs  (Hippolyte),  Recueil  d' Estampes.  Paris,  fol.  1863,  repro- 
ductions. 

C.  Chastillon,  Topographic  Fran$aise,  1612. 

J.  B.  Rigaud,  Recueil  Choisi,  1750. 

P.  G.  Hamerton,  Paris,  Old  and  New,  410,  1885. 

All>ert  Lenoir,  Statistique  Monttmentale  de  Paris,  1861-1875. 


PARIS   AS  AN    HISTORIC   CITY  39! 

With  all  this  prodigious  wealth  of  historic  record 
beneath  our  feet  as  we  tread  over  old  Paris,  how  little 
do  we  think  of  any  part  of  it,  as  we  stroll  about  new 
Paris  of  to-day.  We  lounge  along  the  boulevards,  the 
quays  and  '  places,'  with  thoughts  intent  on  galleries  and 
gardens,  theatres  and  shops,  thinking  as  little  of  the 
past  history  of  the  ground  we  tread  as  a  fly  crawling 
over  a  picture  by  Raphael  thinks  of  high  art.  Hauss- 
mann,  and  the  galleries,  the  Boulevards,  and  the  opera 
smother  up  the  story  of  Paris,  much  as  a  fair  with  its 
booth,  scaffoldings,  and  advertisements  masks  the  old 
buildings  round  some  mediaeval  market-place.  Ceci 
tuera  cela,  said  Victor  Hugo  of  the  book  and  the 
Cathedral.  No  !  it  is  not  the  book  which  has  killed  old 
Paris.  It  is  Haussmann  and  his  imitators,  the  archi- 
tectural destroyers,  restorers,  and  aesthetic  Huns  and 
Vandals.  Not  that  we  deny  to  Haussmannised  Paris 
some  delightful  visions,  many  brilliant,  some  even 
beautiful  effects.  But  to  most  foreign  visitors,  and  per- 
haps to  most  modern  Parisians,  Haussmann  has  buried 
old  Paris  both  actually  and  morally — hiding  it  behind  a 
screen,  disguising  it  with  new  imitation  work,  or  dazzling 
the  eye  till  it  loses  all  sense  of  beauty  in  the  old  work. 

The  effort  to  recall  old  Paris  when  we  stand  in  new 
Paris  certainly  imposes  a  strain  on  the  imagination. 
When  we  stand  on  some  bright  morning  in  early 
summer  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  whilst  all  is  gaiety 
and  life,  children  playing  in  the  gardens,  the  fountains 

S.  Sophia  Beale,  The  Churches  of  Paris  from  Clovis  to  Charles  X,  8vo, 
1893- 

The  Publications  of  the  Societe  de  Thistoire  de  Paris,  annual  volumes, 
1874-1894. 

For  purely  popular  books  there  are,  Old  and  New  Paris,  by  Sutherland 
Edwards,  now  publishing  by  Cassell  and  Co.  in  parts,  1893-94. 

A.  Hare,  Paris  1887  ;  and,  lastly,  there  is  a  fair  historical  account  in 
Joanne's  illustrated  popular  Guide  to  Paris. 


392  THE  CITY   IN   HISTORY 

sparkling  in  the  sun,  and  long  vistas  of  white  stone  glisten- 
ing in  the  light,  with  towers,  spires,  terraces,  and  bridges 
in  long  perspective,  and  the  golden  cross  high  over  the 
dome  of  the  Invalides,  it  is  not  easy  to  recall  the  aspect 
of  the  spot  we  stand  on  when  it  was  soaked  with  the 
blood  of  the  victims  of  the  guillotine  from  King  and 
Queen  to  Madame  Roland  and  Charlotte  Corday ;  we 
forget  that  every  tower  and  terrace  we  look  on  has 
resounded  to  the  roar  of  cannon  and  the  shouts  of 
battle,  with  fire  and  smoke,  with  all  the  forces  of 
destruction  and  all  the  passions  of  hell — not  once  or 
twice  but  repeatedly  for  a  century  ;  nay,  how  the  same 
scenes  of  carnage  and  of  battle  have  raged  through 
Revolution  and  Fronde,  League  and  St.  Bartholomew, 
and  English  wars  and  feudal  faction  fights  back  to  the 
days  of  Counts  of  Paris,  and  Franks,  Huns,  Gauls,  and 
Romans.  And  after  all  these  storms,  the  city  still 
smiles  on  us  as  a  miracle  of  gaiety,  brightness,  industry, 
and  culture,  keeping  some  scar,  or  remnant,  or  sign  of 
every  tempest  it  has  witnessed. 

It  has  happened  to  us  at  times  to  stand  on  some 
beautiful  coast  on  one  of  those  lovely  days  which 
succeed  a  storm,  when  ripples  dance  along  the  blue  and 
waveless  sea,  whilst  the  glassy  water  gently  laps  the 
pebbled  beach,  and  yet  but  a  few  hours  before  we  have 
seen  that  same  coast  lashed  into  foam,  whilst  wild 
billows  swept  into  the  abyss  precious  things  and  price- 
less lives  of  men.  So  I  often  think  Paris  looks  in  its 
brightness  and  calm  a  few  short  years  after  one  of  her 
convulsions ;  fulfilling  her  ancient  motto— fluctuat  nee 
mergitur.  Her  bark  rides  upon  every  billow  and  does 
not  sink.  Fresh  triumphs  of  industry  and  art  and 
knowledge  follow  upon  her  wildest  storm. 

It  is  the  history,  not  the  present  aspect  of  Paris,  that 


PARIS   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY  393 

is  my  present  subject.  I  can  remember  Paris  before  the 
second  empire  began,  before  the  new  Boulevards,  the 
strategical  avenues,  the  interminable  strait  lines  and  the 
mechanical  restorations  of  the  last  forty  years  ;  I  can 
recall  Paris  in  the  days  when  it  was  for  the  most  part  a 
labyrinth  of  narrow,  short,  and  often  winding  streets, 
with  the  sombre  impasses,  the  irregular  courts,  and  vistas 
of  gable,  attic,  cornice,  and  turret  that  Meryon  loved  so 
well,  and  which  Israel  Silvestre  has  recorded  with  such 
patient  care,  and  here  and  there  a  Gothic  fragment  in 
the  simple  state  of  natural  decay  and  gradual  incrusta- 
tion. Since  then  I  have  watched  for  forty  years  the 
process  of  demolition  and  of  restoration — the  destruc- 
tion, construction,  reconstruction,  on  which  such  enor- 
mous sums,  so  much  energy  and  skill,  have  been 
bestowed.  I  will  try  to  avoid  the  dangerous  field  of 
art,  of  archaeology,  of  criticism  and  taste,  treading  my 
way  warily  per  ignes  suppositos  cineri  doloso.  I  will  offer 
no  opinion  on  these  high  matters  of  aesthetic  judgment. 
Let  every  man  and  woman  judge  for  himself  and  her- 
self whether  new  Paris  be  more  beautiful  than  old 
Paris,  if  Haussmann  had  a  finer  genius  than  Pierre  de 
Montereau  and  Philibert  Delorme,  if  symmetrical  boule- 
vards and  spacious  avenues  are  a  nobler  sight  than 
picturesque  alleys — how  far  old  buildings  in  decay 
should  be  '  restored,'  and  if  it  is  good  to  sweep  away 
whole  parishes,  churches,  halls,  mansions,  and  streets  by 
the  dozen,  in  order  to  make  a  barrack  or  a  'place.' 
There  is  much  to  be  said  on  both  sides  of  the  question  : 
but  I  shall  hold  my  peace  on  these  profound  aesthetic 
problems,  for  it  is  safer  to  interfere  as  arbiter  in  a  dog- 
fight than  to  venture  as  umpire  into  the  battle  of  the 
styles.  My  task  is  the  plainer  and  humbler  one  of 
topography  and  the  historic  record.  And  my  historic 


394  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

interests  are  impartial.  I  am  seeking  only  to  identify 
all  memorable  events  of  the  past  with  their  true  local 
association.  To  my  mind,  the  historic  record  covers  all 
memorable  things,  all  conspicuous  names  in  the  long 
evolution  of  the  ages. 

I  have  in  Paris  an  old  and  learned  friend  who  for 
fifty  years  has  lived  in  Paris,  studied  Paris,  loved  Paris, 
as  only  a  Parisian  can  love  his  own  city.  His  habit 
is  to  read  every  book  he  can  meet  with  that  relates  to 
the  topography  of  Paris,  and  then  he  walks  about  and 
verifies  what  he  reads  on  the  spot.  I  often  stroll  about 
the  city  with  my  friend  and  listen  to  him  as  he  pours 
out  volumes  of  topographic  lore.  We  pass  through  the 
modern  screen  of  Haussmannic  Paris :  we  leave  the 
boulevards  and  their  roar,  and  in  a  moment  we  are 
again  in  the  old  world  of  the  eighteenth  or  seventeenth 
century ;  just  as  when  we  turn  out  from  Victoria  Street 
into  Dean's  Yard  and  the  Abbey  Cloister.  So  in  Paris 
we  pass  swiftly  beneath  a  portal  and  the  roar  ceases. 
The  modern  streets,  to  which  our  tourists  confine  their 
walks,  form  after  all  only  a  gigantic  screen  behind 
which  much  of  old  Paris  still  remains  untouched. 

'  Here,'  said  my  old  friend  to  me  but  a  few  years 
ago,  'in  this  quiet  street,  the  Rue  cT Argenteuil,  with  the 
rickety  cour  d'honneur,  the  bit  of  greenery  and  the  bust, 
is  the  house  where  Corneille  lived  and  died  ;  close  by, 
in  the  Rue  St.  Anne,  is  the  house  where  Bossuet  died.' 
Both  houses  lay  in  streets  between  the  Rue  St.  Honort 
and  the  new  Avenue  de  I' Opera :  both  have  now  dis- 
appeared. '  Come,'  said  he, '  into  St.  Rock.  Here  is  the 
simple  tomb  of  Corneille  who  lies  beneath  our  feet ;  a 
medallion  is  all  his  monument ;  a  little  further  on  is  an 
inscription  to  the  memory  of  Bossuet.'  And  as  we  pass 
down  the  steps  of  the  church,  '  Here,1  he  says,  '  was  the 


PARIS   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY  395 

famous  battle  between  Bonaparte,  the  young  soldier  of 
the  Convention,  and  the  sections  of  Lepelletier,  the 
counter  Revolution  of  1/95.'  It  was  Carlyle's  famous 
'  whiff  of  grapeshot/  which  he  oddly  enough  supposed 
to  have  closed  the  Revolution.  Carlyle  declares  that 
the  traces  of  the  balls  are  visible  on  the  facade  of  the 
church  :  but  they  seem  to  have  disappeared  now. 

'  And  now,'  he  would  say,  '  come  and  see  the  fruit  in 
the  Marche  St.  Honore.  On  that  spot  opposite  stood 
the  Library  of  the  Dominican  order  of  monks  called 
Jacobins ;  the  Library  was  dedicated  to  the  Dauphin, 
on  the  day  of  his  birth,  1638.  That  Dauphin,  the  son 
of  Louis  XIII.,  born  under  the  rule  of  Richelieu,  was 
Louis  XIV.  At  the  Revolution  the  Library  was  hired 
by  the  political  club  called  the  "  Friends  of  the  Con- 
stitution." But  these  constitutional  friends  ended  in 
friends  of  Robespierre  and  Marat ;  and  thus  the 
Library  of  the  Dominican  monks,  dedicated  in  servile 
terms  to  Louis  XIV.  under  the  auspices  of  Richelieu,  has 
given  its  name  in  all  modern  languages  to  sanguinary 
revolution.' 

And  now  let  us  make  our  way,  still  keeping  behind 
the  screen  of  the  new  avenues,  to  the  quaint  old  Place 
des  Victoires,  where  the  gilt  statue  in  the  centre,  once 
dedicated  viro  immortali — to  the  'grand  monarque' — 
has  undergone  in  the  last  hundred  years  as  many  changes 
as  the  successive  governments  of  France,  out  of  which 
the  'great  king'  has  at  last  returned  to  his  original 
place.  And  so  we  come  to  St.  Eustache,  that  senigma 
in  the  history  of  art,  a  Gothic  Church  built  by  Renas- 
cence artists  in  a  wonderful  medley  of  two  different 
styles  ;  and  we  pass  in  to  look  at  the  grand  tomb  of 
the  great  Colbert. 

Thus  we  cross  over  to  the  vast  Halles  Centrales,  and 


396  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

thence  to  the  delightful  Marche  aiix  Innocents,  with  the 
fountain  of  Pierre  Lescot  and  Jean  Goujon — to  my 
mind,  at  least  in  its  original  form,  the  most  perfect 
work  of  the  Renascence — now  it  is  much  transformed, 
but  still  in  effect  most  lovely.  For  my  part,  I  prefer 
the  second  of  the  three  shapes  which  the  fountain 
has  received  within  the  present  century.  In  that  old 
March^  aux  Innocents  I  loved  on  a  bright  summer  day 
to  sit  for  hours,  listening  to  the  splash  of  the  fountain 
and  the  gay  voices  of  the  children  at  play.  It  used 
to  be  a  bit  of  old  Paris :  and  worthy,  with  its  colour, 
warmth,  and  varied  perspective,  to  rank  with  a  market- 
place in  Verona  or  Genoa.  Close  by,  in  the  small 
street  de  la  Ferronnerie,  then  much  narrower,  Henry  IV. 
was  assassinated  by  Ravaillac  ;  and  on  the  spot  where 
we  stand  was  the  grim  burial-ground  and  charnel- 
house  of  the  Church  of  the  Innocents.  Quite  close  by, 
across  the  new  Rue  de  Rivoli,  was  the  house  of  Coligny 
where  he  was  murdered  in  the  St.  Bartholomew.  In 
the  Rue  St.  Denis  is  one  of  the  houses  in  which  Moliere 
(Poquelin)  was  said  to  have  been  born.  He  certainly 
died  in  No.  34  Rue  de  Richelieu,  opposite  the  fountain 
which  bears  his  name. 

Then  we  pass  across  to  the  old  city,  the  original  Lutetia, 
the  Paris  of  Julius  Caesar,  of  Julian,  of  Clovis,  and  Hugh 
Capet.  There  on  the  quay  beside  the  apse  of  Notre 
Dame  we  stop  to  mark  the  spot  where  stood  the  house 
of  Canon  Fulbert  where  Abailard  knew,  taught,  and 
loved  HeloTse,  and  then  we  wander  on  to  what  once 
was  Rue  du  Fouarre,  now  almost  swamped  in  the  new 
Rue  Monge,  where  stood  the  old  school  of  Theology 
and  Arts.  Dante  calls  the  street  vico  degli  strami ;  and 
he  records  Sigier,  the  famous  doctor  who  taught  there  ; 
and  some  have  supposed  that  he  actually  lodged  in  this 


PARIS   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY  397 

spot.  Another  suggestion  (which  has  high  authority) 
is  that  from  that  spot  he  could  watch  the  South  Rose 
Window  in  the  transept  of  Notre  Dame,  which  sug- 
gested to  him  the  idea  of  the  Celestial  Rose  of  Paradise. 
Thus  my  old  friend  and  I  are  wont  to  saunter  on  talk- 
ing of  the  schools  of  Paris,  which  for  several  centuries 
have  played  so  vast  a  part  in  the  history  of  France  and 
of  Europe,  and  which  during  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  were  the  main  intellectual  centre  of  the  West. 
And  we  look  in  at  the  Sorbonne  to  see  the  fine  tomb 
of  Richelieu  in  his  church,  which  has  the  earliest  dome 
ever  built  in  Paris,  or  we  stand  for  a  moment  before 
the  well-known  house  on  the  Quai  Voltaire,  where  the 
literary  dictator  of  the  eighteenth  century  died  in  the 
plenitude  of  his  fame. 

Thus  we  stroll  on  to  the  Boulevard  St.  Germain,  and 
at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Bonaparte  we  drop  in  at  the 
old  church  of  St.  Germain  des  Pres,  to  the  historian  one 
of  the  most  memorable  in  Europe,  for  its  foundation 
dates  from  thirteen  centuries  ago,  and  parts  of  what  we 
see  are  far  older  than  any  church  in  London.  There, 
with  fragments  of  Merovingian  building,  we  find  the 
tomb  of  the  greatest  of  modern  philosophers — Rene 
Descartes.  And  as  we  come  into  the  quarter  of  the 
Ecole  de  Medecine  (a  little  below  the  square  of  the 
Odeon,  between  it  and  the  Boulevard  St.  Michel), 
'  here,'  says  my  friend,  '  is  the  "  terre  sainte  de  la  Re- 
volution," and  he  takes  off  his  hat  as  a  mark  of  respect, 
for  he  is  a  republican  of  the  type  of  old  Carnot,  but 
in  no  sense  a  Jacobin.  Then  we  come  to  the  Muse'e 
Dupuytren,  the  surgical  museum  of  Paris,  formerly  the 
refectory  of  the  convent  of  the  Cordeliers  friars,  of  the 
Franciscan  order,  and  in  the  revolution  the  Cordelier 
club  of  Danton  and  Camille  Desmoulins.  Strange  that 


398  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

the  garb  designed  in  the  thirteenth  century  by  the 
blessed  St.  Francis  to  express  humility  and  love — the 
rough  belt  of  cord — should  become  in  the  eighteenth 
century  the  synonym  of  passionate  terrorism.  A  little 
further  off  was  the  house  where  Danton  lodged  and 
thus  his  statue  is  now  placed  beside  it.  My  friend 
knew  the  nephew  of  Danton,  who  remembered  the  great 
tribune.  And  close  by,  I  have  had  pointed  out  to  me 
the  house  where  Charlotte  Corday  stabbed  Marat  in  his 
bath.  '  There,'  said  my  friend  once,  '  in  the  terrible 
days  of  May,  1871,  against  that  baker's  shop,  I  saw  as 
he  lay  dead  in  his  gore  the  body  of  poor  Jules— an 
excellent  soul  but  a  flighty — and  for  three  days  no  one 
dared  to  touch  or  remove  it.' 

Somewhat  higher  up  the  hill,  just  above  the  Sorbonne, 
we  came  upon  a  dingy  little  inn  in  a  back  street.  There 
is  a  Hotel  (then  called  St.  Ouentin)  where  J.  J. 
Rousseau  first  stopped  when  he  arrived  in  Paris,  and 
there  he  first  saw  his  wife,  Therese  Levasseur,  who  was 
a  servant  maid  there ;  the  story  is  told  well  in  the 
Rousseau  of  Mr.  John  Morley.  And  we  wander  up 
the  hill  to  the  old  St.  Etienne  du  Mont,  that  strange 
potpourri  of  Renascence,  Gothic,  and  classical  bits  ;  and 
there  we  search  for  the  tombs  of  Racine  and  of  Pascal, 
the  body  and  monument  of  Racine  having  been  removed 
from  the  old  Port  Royal,  where  he  was  originally  laid, 
to  be  placed  here  beside  Pascal. 

Pascal  lived  and  died  close  by  this  St.  Etienne  du 
Mont.  I  shall  never  forget  the  effect  on  my  mind  when 
one  day  sauntering  up  the  hill  from  the  Luxembourg 
garden  to  the  observatory,  I  saw  an  old  and  dingy 
building  of  the  seventeenth  century,  now  a  women's 
hospital.  '  What  is  that  ? '  I  asked.  '  That,'  said  my 
friend,'  '  is  the  Port  Royal  of  Paris,  a  d6pendance  of  the 


PARIS   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY  399 

central  Port  Royal  des  Champs,  and  it  was  spared  when 
the  great  seat  of  Jansenism  was  destroyed.  What  you 
see  is  the  house  where  Sceur  Angelique  and  the  Arnauds 
removed  for  peace,  which  sheltered  the  Jansenists  during 
twenty-five  years  of  their  most  brilliant  time.  There 
Pascal  met  the  Arnauds  ;  there  often  came  also  Racine 
in  his  later  years  of  theological  mysticism.'  It  is  the 
only  surviving  monument  of  that  wonderful  movement 
in  France  that  we  know  as  Jansenism. 

That  is  the  historic  way  of  seeing  Paris.  But  how 
many  thousands  of  our  tourists  believe  they  know 
Paris  as  well  as  London,  and  have  exhausted  all  its 
sights,  and  hurry  through  Paris,  and  yet  they  could  not 
tell  where  the  Convention  had  its  hall,  or  how  it  came 
there,  or  where  the  bones  of  king  and  queen  and  the 
other  victims  of  the  guillotine  were  laid,  and  why  they 
were  thrown  in  that  spot,  or  where  the  guillotine  stood  : 
nor  have  they  seen  the  cells  where  Marie  Antoinette  and 
Danton,  Vergniaud  and  the  Girondins  passed  their  last 
hours — or  could  distinguish  the  parts  of  the  Louvre,  or 
tell  for  whom  the  many  L's  and  H's  and  M's  are  in- 
scribed— or  where  our  Henry  V.  lived  when  he  was 
ruler  of  France  after  Azincourt,  and  where  was  the 
Palace  of  St.  Louis,  or  of  Philip  Augustus,  or  Clovis, 
or  the  original  Lutetia  of  the  Parisii. 

Let  us  try  to  group  the  record  of  Paris  in  historic 
epochs  and  in  their  right  chronological  order. 

It  is  easy  to  realise  the  Lutetia  of  the  Romans,  the 
first  Gaulish  settlement.  Loukhteith,  its  Celtic  name, 
is  said  to  mean  '  the  stronghold  in  the  morass,' — not 
'  mud-city,'  as  Carlyle  calls  it, — nearly  the  same  as 
Llyn-dyn,  or  London,  which  means  the  Lake-town. 
The  island  (or  eyot  as  we  say  in  the  Thames),  in  the 
Seine  a  little  below  the  junction  of  the  Marne,  where 


400  THE  CITY    IN    HISTORY 

the  Bievre  flows  into  the  Seine,  formed  an  excellent 
fastness.  Caesar  has  given  a  vivid  account  of  the  siege 
of  Paris  in  52  B.C.,  and  from  the  top  of  the  Pantlidon  we 
can  stand  and  trace  the  campaign  of  Labienus,  as  told 
by  the  mighty  general  of  Rome.  The  historic  record 
of  Paris  thus  begins  1946  years  ago.  It  was  a  city  of 
some,  but  not  of  great  importance  in  the  Roman  Empire, 
its  most  famous  incident  being  that  it  was  the  favourite 
residence  of  the  Emperor  Julian  in  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century.  In  a  well-known  passage  in  his  Miso- 
pogon,  he  speaks  of  his  dear  Lutetia,  of  its  soft  and 
delightful  climate,  and  the  richness  of  its  vines. 

There  is  something  strangely  suggestive  in  the 
association  of  Paris  with  the  brilliant,  philosophical, 
wrongheaded  young  Caesar,  with  his  paradoxical  ideals, 
romantic  adventures,  and  tragic  end. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  grand  Roman  remains 
called  Les  Thermes,  adjoining  the  Cluny  Museum, 
belonged  to  the  palace  of  the  Caesars ;  the  great  hall 
forming  the  frigidarium  of  the  Baths,  and  the  rest 
of  the  foundations  have  been  fairly  made  out.  Other 
Roman  remains  are  the  altar  found  under  Notre  Dame, 
many  altars  and  tombs,  both  Pagan  and  Christian,  a 
large  collection  of  objects  in  the  Carnavalet  Museum, 
some  remains  of  city  walls  of  the  fourth  century,  the 
famous  inscription  of  the  nautae  or  watermen's  gild  of 
Paris,  two  aqueducts,  that  of  Arcueil  on  the  south  near 
Bicetre,  and  that  of  Chaillot  near  the  Palais  Royal,  an 
amphitheatre,  east  of  the  Pantheon  near  the  R.  Monge, 
a  second  palace  beneath  the  Conciergerie,  several 
cemeteries  and  tombs,  in  the  R.  Vivienne  on  the  north, 
and  also  in  the  south,  a  Roman  camp,  a  factory  of 
pottery,  a  mass  of  antiquities  at  Monlmartre,  the  Mons 
Martis,  I  think,  not  the  Mons  Martyrum. 


PARIS   AS  AN    HISTORIC  CITY  401 

This  forms  a  mass  of  Roman  antiquities  which 
together  raise  Paris  to  the  rank  of  importance  amongst 
the  scanty  remnants  of  ancient  civilisation  in  Northern 
Europe.  In  the  Thermes  we  have  the  Roman  Louvre, 
in  the  altar  of  Jupiter  the  antitype  of  Notre  Dame,  in 
the  cemetery  of  the  R.  Vivienne  the  Roman  Pere-la- 
C/taise,  in  the  foundations  below  the  Palais  de  Justice, 
the  Roman  Hotel  de  Ville,  in  the  Parvis  de  Notre 
Dame  perhaps  the  Roman  Forum,  the  predecessor  of 
the  Place  de  Greve. 

There  is  seldom  to  be  met  so  striking  a  bit  of  city 
topography  as  the  long  history  of  evolution  in  the  Cite, 
or  island,  of  Paris.  First,  it  was  a  group  of  palisaded 
eyots  in  a  broad  river  spreading  out  on  both  sides  into 
swamps — the  river  stronghold  of  a  tribe  called  by  the 
Romans  Parisii,  a  word  possibly  connected  with  Bar 
which  is  thought  to  signify  a  frontier  (Bar-sur-Aube 
etc.).  Then  this  river  stronghold  is  joined  to  the 
mainland  by  two  bridges  not  in  a  straight  line  but 
at  opposite  ends  of  the  island  and  both  doubtless 
defended ;  it  is  next  a  Roman  city,  ultimately  walled, 
with  its  central  temple,  its  municipality,  its  quays,  and 
some  outlying  buildings,  the  Imperial  Palace,  the 
amphitheatre,  cemeteries,  camp,  and  the  like,  on  the 
mainland,  both  north  and  south :  one  bridge,  now  the 
Pont  au  change,  opening  into  the  Place  du  Chdtelet ;  the 
smaller  bridge,  now  Petit  Pont,  higher  up  the  river 
over  the  narrow  arm,  at  the  end  of  the  R,  St.  Jacques. 

This  Roman  city,  mainly  on  the  island,  but  with 
annexes,  north  and  south,  on  the  mainland,  according 
to  the  legend  of  St.  Genevieve,  repels  the  assault  of 
Attila,  is  captured  by  Clovis  at  the  end  of  the  fifth 
century,  and  is  made  his  capital.  During  the  early 
monarchy,  the  island  was  the  city,  the  home  of  the 

2C 


402  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

kings,  the  seat  of  the  church,  of  government,  and  of 
justice,  crowded  with  narrow  streets  and  churches,  and 
densely  populated.  Gradually  as  the  walls  of  Paris 
were  extended  in  a  series  of  circuits  from  the  twelfth  to 
the  eighteenth  century,  the  island  city  was  eased  of  its 
close  population,  and  at  last  in  our  own  day  was  cleared 
altogether  by  gigantic  sweeps  of  destruction  and  recon- 
struction. It  once  contained  some  50,000  inhabitants, 
at  least  fifty  or  sixty  streets,  and  more  than  twenty 
churches.  To-day  it  has  few  private  houses  left,  except 
at  each  end.  As  we  said,  the  Citt  consists  of  Cathedral, 
Palais  de  Justice,  and  Sainte  Chapelle,  Conciergerie  and 
Prisons,  Prefecture  of  Police,  Chamber  of  Commerce,  a 
huge  hospital,  a  huge  barrack,  a  flower  market — vast 
'  places,'  gardens,  quays,  and  Morgue.  This  is  almost  all 
that  stands  on  the  Paris  of  Julian,  Clovis,  and  Hugh  Capet. 
It  is  a  task  full  of  historical  teaching  to  trace  the 
successive  circuits  and  the  walls  of  the  city  as  it 
gradually  grew.  Each  circuit  represents  an  epoch  in 
the  history  of  France.  First  comes  the  old  Roman 
and  Gallo-Roman  circuit — the  Citt  or  island  with  some 
fortified  post  at  the  head  of  the  North  Bridge  (PI.  du 
Chatelet)  and  at  the  South  Bridge  (R.  St.  Jacques) 
extending  on  the  South  mainland  as  far  as  the  TJtermes 
with  villas,  theatres,  cemeteries,  and  establishments  out- 
side the  city  circuit.  The  second  circuit  is  that  of  Louis 
the  Stout,  the  great  restorer  of  the  monarchy  ( 1 1 30), 
who  built  the  Grand  CMtelet  on  the  site  of  the  Place  du 
Chdtelet,  and  the  Petit  ChAtelet  on  the  Quai  St.  Michel 
(left  bank).  The  third  circuit  is  that  of  the  great  king 
Philip  Augustus  (1200),  who  built  the  Louvre,  com- 
pleted Notre  Dame,  and  carried  the  walls  North  as  far 
as  St.  Eustache,  South  as  far  as  the  Pantheon,  and 
included  the  smaller  island,  so  that  the  original  Citt  was 


PARIS  AS  AN   HISTORIC  CITY  403 

now  but  a  sixth  of  the  city.     Next  comes  the  fourth 
circuit,  raised  by  Etienne  Marcel  in  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  just  after  Poitiers  during  the  great 
English  War,  who  is  duly  commemorated  by  the  fine 
equestrian  statue  beside  the   Hotel  du  Ville.     Marcel 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  Bastille,  and  repaired  and 
strengthened  rather  than  extended  the  circuit  of  Philip 
Augustus  ;  and  then  the  whole  work  was  completed  by 
Charles  V.  in  the  second  half  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
The  fifth  great  circuit  is  that  of  Richelieu  under  Louis 
XIII.  who  carried  the  city  walls  Northwards  as  far  as 
the  existing  inner  Boulevards,  and  the  R.  Richelieu  and 
its  quarter  is   one  of  its  additions  ;  and  Southwards  it 
inclosed  the  whole  district  of  the  Luxembourg  and  its 
gardens  to  the  Jardin  des  Plantes.     The  sixth  great 
change  came  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  who  conceiving 
himself  invincible  in   France,  if  not  in   Europe,  found 
fortifications  in  Paris  needless  and  barbarous.     Accord- 
ingly  in    his   reign   the   old   walls   of  Henry  IV.   and 
Richelieu  were  razed,  and  the  Boulevards  that  we  know 
were  constructed  as  spacious  avenues.     On  the  site  of  the 
ancient   Tour  de  Nesle,  the   Institute  and  the  College 
Mazarin  were  built ;  the  Louvre  was  completed  and 
transformed  into  an  Italian  palace ;  the  Tuileries  were 
continued  until  they  joined  the  Louvre ;  the  Invalides 
and  other  great  works  were  continued,  and  finally  Paris 
received  its  character  of  an  open  modern  city  of  Palla- 
dian  architecture.     The  seventh  great  change  was  in 
the  reign  of  Louis  XVI.  just  before  the  Revolution,  when 
for  purely  fiscal  purposes  the  octroi  barrier  was  carried 
forward  to  inclose  vast  districts  not  before  within  the 
walls.     This  was  adopted  by  the  Revolution  and  com- 
.pleted  by  Napoleon.     The  eighth  and  final  circuit  was 
that  of  L.  Philippe  in  1840,  the  fortifications  which  held 


404  THE   CITY   IN   HISTORY 

the  German  army  at  bay  for  four  months — which  it  is 
now  proposed  to  destroy  for  a  military  circuit  even  more 
vast.  The  story  of  the  successive  circuits  of  Paris  is  the 
history  of  France  in  its  critical  epochs. 

After  the  political  and  military  history  of  the  city 
comes  the  history  of  its  religious  foundations,  the 
Churches,  Abbeys,  and  confraternities.  No  one  can 
suppose,  till  he  has  gone  into  it,  the  enormous  number 
of  these,  their  strange  antiquity,  their  rich  and  stirring 
history.  The  fragments  of  these  abbeys  and  churches 
that  we  see  to-day  are  the  scanty  remnants  of  vast 
edifices  and  a  dense  population  scattered  and  gone — 
just  as  a  column  or  an  arch  at  Rome  survives  to  tell  us 
of  the  mighty  city  of  the  Caesars  with  its  millions.  The 
Revolution,  the  Nineteenth  Century,  the  Napoleons, 
Haussmann,  and  the  Municipal  Council,  have  swept 
away  the  old  churches  and  convents  of  Paris  by  hun- 
dreds and  thousands.  The  immense  clearances  in  the 
Island  Cite*,  those  between  and  around  the  Louvre  and 
the  Tuileries,  the  new  Boulevards  and  broad  Avenues, 
have  destroyed  scores  and  scores.  The  new  Hotel  Dieu 
and  the  ' places '  in  front  of  and  round  Notre  Dame,  the 
Barrack  of  the  Guard  and  the  Tribunal  de  Commerce 
and  Prefecture  of  Police  have  between  them  demolished 
more  than  twenty  entire  streets  and  at  least  twenty 
churches,  chapels,  oratories,  and  religious  edifices.  The 
names  of  churches  and  foundations  destroyed  survive  in 
the  countless  St  Jacques  and  St.  Pierres,  the  Capucins, 
Jacobins,  Mathurins,  and  so  forth,  that  we  find  in  the 
streets  and  passages.  All  those  who  are  seriously 
interested  in  the  ecclesiastical  antiquities  of  old  Paris 
should  study  the  very  excellent  guide  just  published — 
The  CkurcJies  of  Paris,  from  Clovis  to  Charles  X.y  by  S. 
Sophia  Beale,  with  illustrations  by  the  author  (London, 


PARIS   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY  405 

1893).  It  collects,  in  a  useful  and  interesting  manner, 
a  mass  of  information  as  to  the  old  churches  of 
Paris. 

We  forget,  in  their  new  casing,  the  antiquity  of  those 
which  remain.  The  Madeleine  which  we  stare  at  as  a 
bran-new  Greek  Temple  is  as  old  as  the  thirteenth 
century  in  foundation.  It  is  contemporary  with  St. 
Louis,  and  was  in  origin  the  chapel  of  the  country 
palace  of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris — exactly  answering  to 
Lambeth  Palace.  So  too  the  Pantheon — which  English- 
men are  too  wont  to  look  on  as  an  imitation  of  St.  Paul's, 
and  a  mere  piece  of  eighteenth  century  classicism — is 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  interesting  monuments  in 
Christendom.  The  church  of  Saint  Genevieve,  the 
patron  saint  of  Paris,  who  is  said  to  have  roused  the 
citizens  to  resist  Attila  the  Hun,  was  founded  to  contain 
her  tomb  in  508  by  Clovis  and  Clotilda,  the  first  Chris- 
tian King  and  Queen  of  the  Franks.  Clovis  and 
Clotilda  and  many  of  their  race  were  there  buried, 
beside  the  Jeanne  d'Arc  of  the  fifth  century.  A  vast 
abbey  rose  there ;  its  name  was  frequently  changed. 
The  tombs  and  the  relics  were  transferred  at  times  to 
St.  Etienne  du  Mont,  with  which  it  is  closely  associated. 
The  name,  the  exact  spot,  the  building,  have  been 
constantly  altered.  The  church  that  we  see,  which  is 
little  more  than  a  hundred  years  old,  has  been  three 
times  a  church,  and  three  times  converted  into  a  secular 
monument  which  it  is  to-day.  It  is  the  older  Westminster 
Abbey  of  Paris,  for  it  goes  back  to  times  before  Arthur, 
and  to  a  century  before  the  coming  of  the  monks 
amongst  the  Saxons.  The  church  which  fourteen 
centuries  ago  was  dedicated  to  the  first  champions  of 
Northern  Christianity,  has  been  the  burying-place  of 
Mirabeau,  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  Marat,  and  has  now 


406  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

again  been  made  a  secular  monument  in  order  to  hold 
the  ashes  of  Victor  Hugo. 

'  St.  Germain '  means  to  an  English  ear  aristocratic, 
magnificent,  exclusive.  But  historically,  St.  Germain  is 
the  abbey  founded  by  Childebert,  the  son  of  Clovis  in 
542,  half  a  century  before  Augustine  came  to  Canter- 
bury. Its  church  was  the  burying-place  of  many  kings 
of  the  first  dynasty.  The  church  that  we  see  in  the 
Boulevard  St.  Germain  is  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries  ;  but  it  is  said  to  contain  some  fragments  of 
carving,  capitals,  and  columns  in  the  apse  from  the 
church  of  Childebert.  The  ancient,  but  probably  not 
the  original,  tombs  of  the  Merwings  have  been  removed 
to  St.  Denis  and  to  the  Museums.  Hugh  Capet,  the 
founder  of  the  third  dynasty,  was  Abbot  of  St.  Germain. 
It  was  one  of  the  greatest  foundations  in  Christendom. 
We  may  read  in  the  Histoire  GMrale  a  full  account  of 
it,  with  many  illustrations  at  different  times.  It  was  one 
of  the  greatest  centres  of  Benedictine  learning.  Mabil- 
lon,  Monfaucon  laboured  there.  They  lie  in  the  church 
with  Descartes  and  Boileau. 

TheAbbaye,  the  prison  of  the  Revolution,  was  part 
of  the  monastery,  and  was  only  removed  in  the  third 
empire  in  my  own  memory.  The  famous  Prt  aux  dercs, 
renowned  in  romance  and  memoir,  in  the  drama  and  in 
art,  where  the  gallants  of  the  Renascence  fought  their 
duels,  was  the  riverside  meadow  of  the  learned  monks. 
What  a  world  it  is !  Here  is  a  church,  the  Westminster 
Abbey  of  the  first  Frank  kings  at  a  date  when  the 
Britons  were  fighting  the  heathen  Saxons  inch  by  inch 
— the  home  for  twelve  centuries  of  a  mighty  order  and 
the  central  seat  of  their  learning — the  abbey  of  the 
mitred  sovereign  who  gave  his  name  to  the  dynasty  of 
France,  the  home  of  modern  French  learning, — the 


PARIS   AS   AN   HISTORIC  CITY  407 

scene  of  the  duels  of  Henri  II.  and  the  massacres  of 
September — now  a  poor  maimed  and  restored  fragment 
of  Romanesque  architecture,  drowned  in  the  torrential 
magnificence  of  a  Napoleonic  Boulevard,  and  giving 
its  ancient  name  to  the  luxurious  retreat  of  impotent 
bigotry. 

St.  Denis  is  the  true  Westminster  Abbey  of  Paris, 
the  burying-place  of  so  many  kings  since  Dagobert. 
It  commemorates  Dionysius,  a  Christian  martyr  of  the 
third  century  in  the  Decian  persecution,  called  the  first 
bishop  of  Paris.  Dagobert,  in  the  seventh  century, 
built  here  a  great  basilica ;  but  in  the  twelfth  century 
Suger  made  it  one  of  the  great  cradles  of  pointed  archi- 
tecture. If  we  could  see  St.  Denis  as  it  existed  down 
to  the  Revolution  with  all  its  tombs,  its  monuments, 
and  its  treasures  intact,  our  own  Abbey  could  hardly 
compare  with  it  in  historical  interest.  Accustomed  to 
the  hallowed  gloom  of  our  own  Abbey,  we  shudder  at 
the  new,  scraped,  gilt  revivalism  of  St.  Denis  to-day. 
But  though  its  treasures  are  scattered,  and  the  bones 
torn  from  its  desecrated  graves,  and  the  old  glass  is 
destroyed  with  the  tombs,  statues,  carvings,  and  wood 
work,  though  the  Viollet-le-Ducs  have  had  their  will 
upon  the  old  church — yet  the  historical  mind  must 
recognise,  when  it  has  recovered  its  temper,  that  the 
church  of  the  great  Abbot  Suger  still  presents  to  us  a 
type  with  which  few  buildings  of  the  Middle  Ages  can 
vie  in  historical  memories. 

He  who  will  follow  up  the  histories  of  these  Abbeys, 
— of  Ste.  Genevieve,  of  St.  Germain,  St.  Dents,  St. 
Victor,  the  foundation  of  William  of  Champeaux,  of 
the  other  St.  Germain,  opposite  the  Louvre,  and  St. 
Jacques  de  la  Boucherie — who  will  study  the  history  of 
the  schools  of  Paris,  so  famous  from  the  eleventh  to  the 


408  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

fourteenth  centuries  and  the  growth  of  the  University, 
incorporated  by  St.  Louis  in  the  thirteenth  century- 
will  come  to  see  how  completely,  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  Paris  was  the  intellectual  centre  of  Catholicism, 
if  Rome  was  its  centre  of  government.  And  he  who 
will  watch  all  that  goes  on  to-day  in  the  quarter 
between  Notre  Dame  and  the  Invalides  will  understand 
how  deep  are  the  roots  of  this  organised  Catholicism 
still — in  spite  of  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Revolution,  and 
Commune. 

We  may  still  see  in  Paris  three  typical  masterpieces 
of  Gothic  art,  each  one  recording  a  great  chief  in  a 
central  epoch.  The  first  is  the  Abbey  of  St.  Denis, 
built  in  1140  by  Suger,  the  friend  and  fellow-worker 
of  St.  Bernard,  the  great  minister  of  Louis  the  Stout. 
The  next  is  the  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  practically 
completed  about  sixty  years  later  in  the  reign  of  Philip 
Augustus.  The  third  is  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  built  in 
1 245  by  his  grandson,  Saint  Louis.  Within  the  space 
of  this  one  hundred  years,  from  1140  to  1245,  the 
pointed  style  in  France  arose,  flourished,  and  reached 
perfection.  These  three  buildings  are  associated  with 
the  three  great  kings  of  French  Feudalism.  St.  Denis 
is  perhaps  the  earliest  complete  example  of  the  pointed 
style :  it  is  earlier  than  our  Salisbury  by  a  hundred 
years.  As  the  Westminster  Abbey  of  France,  as  the 
type  of  the  first  pointed  style  in  its  central  home,  St. 
Denis  must  be  reckoned,  at  least  by  the  historian,  as 
the  cradle  of  pointed  architecture,  even  more  truly  than 
the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  is  the  cradle  of  the 
domed  architecture  of  the  Renascence. 

Notre  Dame,  to  the  historian  if  not  to  the  artist,  is  the 
typical,  central,  Gothic  Cathedral.  It  is  almost,  if  not 
absolutely,  the  earliest  of  the  great  pointed  Cathedrals 


PARIS   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY  409 

in  their  maturity.  Its  noble  fagade  is  altogether  the 
grandest,  most  majestic,  most  permanently  satisfying 
of  all  the  great  creations  of  the  pointed  style — at  least 
if,  in  the  mind's  eye,  we  conceive  it  with  all  its  carving 
and  statues  perfect  in  their  original  form,  and  perhaps 
with  its  towers  carried  some  hundred  feet  higher  by 
spires  in  some  such  way  as  Viollet-le-Duc  conceived. 
If  there  be  pointed  Cathedrals  which  surpass  Notre 
Dame  in  mass,  richness,  and  beauty,  and  there  can  be 
but  three  others,  the  historical  importance  of  Notre 
Dame  stands  pre-eminent,  as  the  work  of  the  French 
monarchy  at  its  highest  point,  as  the  cathedral  of  their 
capital,  the  intellectual  centre  of  Catholicism  in  the 
thirteenth  century — the  high  water-mark  of  Western 
Christendom.  He  who  would  understand  the  Middle 
Ages  should  make  a  minute  study  of  one  of  these 
mighty  works,  with  the  admirable  monographs  of  the 
French  archaeologists.  Notre  Dame,  with  its  triple 
portals,  and  the  gallery  of  the  kings,  its  carvings  and 
statues,  the  exquisite  screen  within  round  the  choir, 
its  majestic  facade  and  noble  towers,  had  no  superior 
in  Gothic  Art,  whilst  it  failed  least  in  stability  and 
simplicity,  the  one  side  where  Gothic  art  is  usually 
prone  to  err.  It  is  a  happiness  to  be  able  to  remember 
Notre  Dame  before  the  restoration  began  :  when  it  was 
surrounded  by  a  labyrinth  of  picturesque  streets  and 
buildings,  and  the  grey  facade  rose  up  in  proud  pathos 
from  out  the  gables  in  crumbling  and  battered  decay. 

The  Cathedral  has  never  before  been  seen  as  we  see 
it  to-day :  for  it  now  stands  alone  in  vast  open  spaces, 
detached  from  the  houses,  churches,  chapels,  and  palaces 
which  were  piled  up  round  it.  To-day  it  looks  too 
much  like  a  huge  model,  or  disinterred  ruin,  set  in  an 
open-air  museum.  It  is  no  longer  the  central  cathedral 


410  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

of  Catholic  France :  it  is  a  sight,  a  relic,  a  national 
monument,  an  ecclesiastical  Palais  des  Thermes :  from 
the  restored  fragments  of  which  the  city,  and  all  that 
can  recall  its  builders  has  been  unsparingly  swept  into 
oblivion. 

Thirdly,  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  the  work  of  St.  Louis, 
in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  is  accepted  as 
the  type  of  pointed  art  in  its  zenith.  It  may  be  called 
the  only  quite  perfect  work  of  Gothic  art,  mainly  because 
its  small  scale  necessarily  frees  it  from  the  besetting 
weaknesses  of  Gothic  art  when  it  essays  the  grandest 
problems  of  the  builders'  science.  Nor  need  the  his- 
torian of  art  regret  the  restoration  so  fiercely  as  does 
the  artist.  When  Viollet-le-Duc  took  it  in  hand,  it 
was  a  mutilated  ruin,  out  of  which  the  ordinary  visitor 
could  not  reconstruct  its  original  glow.  The  paint  may 
be  overdone ;  the  colours  are  not  always  harmonious  ; 
the  new  glass  is  not  equal  to  the  old.  But  its  restora- 
tion by  the  most  learned  of  modern  antiquarians  enables 
the  unlearned  to  judge  the  effect  of  Gothic  architecture 
in  its  glory,  and  to  understand  the  pregnant  remark  of 
Mr.  Fergusson  that  Gothic  architecture  might  well  be 
named  the  painted-glass  style  of  building.  To  the 
historian,  this  Chapel,  the  domestic  oratory  of  St.  Louis, 
the  purest  hero  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  church  of  the 
palace  of  the  French  kings  in  their  noblest  era,  the 
entrancing  masterpiece  of  pointed  architecture,  must 
remain  as  one  of  the  typical  buildings  in  the  world. 

The  mass  of  buildings,  of  which  the  Sainte  Chapelle 
is  part,  exactly  answers  to  our  palace  of  Westminster ; 
and  our  palace  alone  can  compare  with  it  as  a  relic  of 
the  Feudal  monarchy.  The  Conciergerie  prison,  the 
adjacent  hall,  and  the  towers  which  we  see  along  the 
Quai  de  PHorloge,  correspond  with  the  remains  of  the 


PARIS   AS   AN    HISTORIC   CITY  4!  I 

old  palace  of  Westminster,  which  was  finally  destroyed 
when  the  Houses  of  Parliament  were  built.  The  Sainte. 
Chapelle  answers  to  St.  Stephen's,  of  which  the  ex- 
quisite crypt  alone  survived  the  fire  of  1834.  West- 
minster Hall  answers  to  the  Salle  des  Pas  Perdus, 
which  took  the  place  of  the  great  Hall  of  St.  Louis. 
The  Palais  de  Justice  answers  to  the  Law  Courts  of 
Westminster  which  were  in  use  till  removed  in  1882. 
The  Tour  de  VHorloge  exactly  repeats  our  Clock  Tower. 
Now  the  French  palace  is  in  foundation  far  more  ancient 
than  the  English ;  more  of  its  ancient  parts  remain  ; 
and  its  historical  record  is  longer,  and  almost  more 
crowded  with  incident,  than  our  own.  The  French 
palace  is  the  successor  of  the  Municipal  palace  of 
Roman  Lutetia  ;  and  traces  of  this  building  have  been 
preserved.  It  was  certainly  the  Parisian  palace  of 
Clovis  and  his  dynasty,  of  Charlemagne  and  his  dynasty, 
and  it  was  the  capital  seat  of  the  Counts  of  Paris,  when 
they  became  kings  of  France.  It  only  ceased  to  be  a 
royal  residence  in  the  age  of  Francis  I.  and  Henri  II. 
It  was  thus  for  a  thousand  years  the  home  of  the 
monarchs  of  the  Seine  valley.  It  is  significant  of 
French  history  that,  whereas  in  England  Parliament 
has  finally  ousted  both  Monarchy  and  Justice  from  the 
Palace  of  Westminster  and  installed  itself  in  the  royal 
abode  and  even  taken  its  name,  in  Paris  it  is  Justice 
and  Police  which  have  appropriated  the  Palace  in  the 
island  Cite  and  have  long  ago  ousted  both  Parliament 
and  Monarchy. 

In  England  we  have  nothing  of  the  old  palace  left 
but  the  crypt  of  St.  Stephen's,  some  cloisters,  a  few 
chambers,  and  the  great  Hall.  In  France  they  have 
rebuilt  their  old  Hall ;  but  they  have  their  Chapel  almost 
entire.  And  whereas  in  Westminster  we  have  the  old 


4T2  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

palace  now  rebuilt,  and  absorbed  in  Barry's  modern 
perpendicular,  in  Paris  they  have  still  the  shell  of  the 
old  towers  and  gateway,  and  some  fine  work  of  the  age 
of  St.  Louis  within  the  Conciergerie  building.  There  is 
some  noble  masonry  in  what  is  called  the  Kitchen  of 
St.  Louis,  evidently  the  substructure  of  his  palace,  and 
many  other  parts  of  his  work  within  the  precincts  of  the 
prison.  Few  prisons  have  a  record  more  stirring.  Here, 
during  the  Revolution,  all  the  chief  prisoners  passed 
their  last  hours.  We  may  still  see  the  cell  where  Marie 
Antoinette  uttered  her  last  prayers,  where  Robespierre 
lay  in  agony,  and  Danton  and  Vergniaud  thundered  out 
their  latest  perorations, — and  they  show  you,  too,  the 
traditional  scene  of  the  mythical  last  supper  of  the 
Girondins,  which  figures  so  melodramatically  in  the 
famous  romance  of  Lamartine. 

This  Conciergerie,  with  the  hall  of  the  Cordelier  Club, 
the  Musee  Dupuytren,  is  the  only  extant  building  in 
Paris,  which  is  closely  associated  with  great  scenes  of 
the  Revolution.  The  Bastille  is  gone,  the  Tuileries,  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  the  Hall  of  the  Convention  in  the  R.  de 
Rivoli,  the  Jacobin  Club,  the  prisons,  the  Temple,  Abbaye, 
La  Force,  Chatelet,  and  the  rest.  So,  too,  the  tombs  of 
Mirabeau,  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Marat,  Louis  XVI.,  and 
Marie  Antoinette  no  longer  hold  their  bones,  and  ceno- 
taphs record  the  spot  where  they  were  laid.  Etiain  periere 
sepulchra.  New  Haussmannic  streets  cover  the  soil, 
wherein  the  ashes  of  Danton  and  Vergniaud,  Charlotte 
Corday  and  Madame  Roland,  moulder  unknown.  Of 
the  Revolution  no  buildings  remain,  but  only  sites ;  and 
the  only  edifices,  which  survive  to  speak  to  us  of  the 
September  massacres  and  the  Terror  are  the  dining- 
hall  of  the  followers  of  St.  Francis  and  the  palace  of  St. 
Louis,  the  knight  and  crusader. 


PARIS   AS  AN   HISTORIC  CITY  413 

In  spite  of  destruction  and  reconstruction,  the  history 
of  the  great  edifices  of  old  Paris  is  wonderfully  instruc- 
tive, even  that  of  the  buildings  which  have  wholly 
disappeared.  But  they  must  be  studied  in  the  learned 
and  elaborate  works,  such  as  those  of  Dulaure,  Piganiol, 
Viollet-le-Duc,  Lacroix,  Lenoir,  Guilhermy,  Fournier, 
Hoffbauer,  Fergusson,  Hamerton,  in  the  Histoire  Gene- 
rale,  and  in  Paris  a  travers  les  Ages,  in  the  splendid 
series  of  etchings  and  engravings  of  old  Paris,  which  may 
be  found  in  the  library  of  the  Carnavalet  Museum,  and 
in  our  British  Museum.  Bastille,  Louvre,  Hotel  de  Ville, 
Tuileries,  Luxembourg,  the  Cite,  St.  Germain,  Ste.  Gene- 
vieve,  would  each  require  an  essay,  or  a  volume  with 
maps  and  plans  and  restorations,  to  make  them  intelli- 
gible. But  those  who  seek  to  know  what  Paris  has  been 
in  the  long  succession  of  ages  may  still  revive  it  in  their 
minds,  with  the  aid  of  the  mass  of  literature  that  is 
open  to  them,  and  if  they  will  study  not  only  the  extant 
churches,  but  such  works  of  domestic  art  as  the  Hotel 
Cluny,  and  Hotel  de  Sens,  Hotel  la  Valette,  the  house  in 
the  Cours  la  Reine,  and  the  Hotel  Carnavalet. 

A  careful  study  of  Silvestre,  Ducerceau,  and  Meryon 
will  give  some  idea  of  old  Paris,  with  its  vast  walls, 
gates,  towers,  castles,  its  crowded  churches,  its  immense 
abbeys,  its  narrow  winding  streets,  its  fetid  cemeteries, 
gloomy  courts  and  impasses,  its  filthy  lanes,  and  its 
bridges  loaded  with  houses.  We  may  linger  about  the 
old  remnants  of  churches,  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of 
the  Mediaeval  Catholicism,  such  bits  as  the  tower  of  St. 
Jacques,  and  the  portals  of  the  two  St.  Germains,  and 
of  St.  Nicolas  des  Champs,  the  old  churches  of  St.  Julien 
le  Pauvre,  and  St.  Martin  des  Champs,  the  church  of 
St.  Severin,  and  the  chapel  of  the  Chateau  de  Vincennes. 
Then  let  us  study  the  tombs  in  St.  Germain  des  Pres,  of 


414  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

St.  Denis,  and  St.  £tienne  du  Mont :  and  then  we  may 
go  on  to  the  tomb  that  all  Englishmen  visit — the  tomb 
which  I  always  feel  to  be  the  grandest  of  all  sepulchral 
conceptions  (to  be  set  beside  the  tomb  of  Theodoric  at 
Ravenna,  and  the  tomb  of  Cecilia  Metella  on  the  Appian 
way),  almost  the  one  work  of  modern  art,  which  is  at 
once  colossal,  noble,  and  pathetic — I  mean  the  mighty 
vault  beneath  the  dome  of  the  Invalides>  where  the 
greatest  soldier  and  the  womt  ruler  of  our  age  sleeps  at 
last  in  peace,  guarded  by  the  veterans  of  France. 

We  need  not  deny  to  modern  Paris  the  gift  of  charm  ; 
we  may  admit  that  her  museums  and  libraries,  her  col- 
lections, and  her  treasures  are  inexhaustible  to  the  fit 
student ;  but  far  more  impressive  is  the  history  of  this 
memorable  city,  with  its  vast  range  of  time,  of  variety, 
of  association — with  its  record  of  the  dawn  of  Western 
civilisation,  of  Catholicism  and  Feudalism,  of  the  Renas- 
cence, and  the  modern  world,  of  the  Revolution  of  the 
last  century,  and  the  Imperialism  of  this  century — with 
its  dust  enriched  with  the  bones  of  those  who  in  things 
of  the  soul  and  in  things  of  war,  in  the  love  of  beauty, 
and  .in  the  passion  for  new  life,  have  dared  and  done 
memorable  deeds,  from  the  days  of  Genevieve  and 
Clotilda,  the  Louis  and  the  Henrys,  down  to  the  two 
Napoleons,  and  the  three  Republics. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

THE  TRANSFORMATION   OF    PARIS1 

No  city  of  the  Old  World  has  undergone  changes  so 
enormous  within  the  last  hundred  years  as  the  city  of 
Paris.  To  contrast  its  condition  down  to  the  year  1789 
with  its  condition  to-day  is  to  measure  the  civilisation 
of  old  Europe  by  the  civilisation  of  the  Europe  we  see. 
Paris  in  1789  was  a  perfect  type  of  the  feudal,  monarchic, 
obsolete  system  of  privilege;  the  Paris  of  1889  is  the 
most  republican,  the  most  modern,  the  most  symmetrical 
and  complete  of  the  cities  of  Europe.  The  hundred 
years  have  witnessed  there  a  reorganisation  of  social  life 
more  rapid  and  profound  than  any  other  which  Europe 
has  known. 

If  the  millions  who  throng  the  boulevards,  and  the 
Places,  the  Champ  de  Mars,  and  the  Esplanade  of  the 
Invalides  could  but  roll  back  the  veil  of  time,  could 
see  that  city  as  it  stood  in  the  closing  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  they  would  behold  a  city  which  in 
all  essential  things  was  a  fortress  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
adorned  with  some  vast  palaces  and  churches  of  the 
Grand  Monarque — a  city,  in  the  main,  such  as  Rome 
was  until  the  Italian  kingdom  had  entered  and  trans- 
formed it.  They  would  see  the  life  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  in  most  material  points,  unaltered — nay,  traces 

1   The  North  American  Review,  Sept.  1889,  vol.  cxlix. 


416  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

of  the  life  of  the  sixteenth,  the  fifteenth,  and  even  of 
the  fourteenth  century. 

The  vast,  gloomy,  and  decayed  remains  of  the  old 
city  still  cumbered  the  lines  of  so  many  gay  and  open 
boulevards.  Where  there  are  now  some  twenty  bridges 
across  the  Seine,  there  were  then  but  six  or  seven  ; 
and  on  some  of  these  could  still  be  seen  the  houses  and 
buildings  which  made  the  bridges  of  old  Europe  crowded 
alleys.  There  were  few  open  spaces  at  all  except  in 
front  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and  at  the  end  of  the  garden 
of  the  Tuileries.  The  old  city  of  Richelieu  and  Mazarin 
— the  city  (to  speak  roughly)  that  lay  between  the 
PantJieon  and  the  gate  of  St.  Denis,  and  between  the 
Tuileries  and  the  Bastille — existed  still,  and  much  in 
the  condition  in  which  Richelieu  and  Mazarin  had 
known  it, — crowded  with  narrow,  crooked,  picturesque 
streets,  unpaved,  uncleaned,  ill-lighted,  with  Gothic 
portals  and  towers  here  and  there ;  crowded  round  with 
houses,  halls,  and  mansions.  The  island,  or  old  Cite,  in 
particular,  was  a  dense  tangle  of  streets,  churches,  and 
religious  edifices.  From  north  to  south  there  ran  several 
ancient  and  a  few  recent  thoroughfares  ;  but  from  east 
to  west  he  who  wished  to  pass  from  the  Bastille  to  the 
Louvre  would  make  his  way  through  a  net-work  of 
tortuous  lanes,  where  the  direct  route  was  continually 
interrupted  by  huge  palaces,  mediaeval  fortresses,  or 
conventual  enclosures. 

Four  great  castles  of  feudal  times  still  frowned  over 
the  city  and  bore  the  banner  of  the  Old  Monarchy — the 
Chdtelet,  the  Bastille,  the  Temple,  and  the  Conciergerie. 
Of  these  not  a  vestige  remains  except  the  restored 
simulacrum  of  the  last.  In  the  midst  of  this  jumble  of 
close  and  mediaeval  streets  there  were  scattered  many 
sumptuous  Palladian  palaces  of  royal,  princely,  or  ducal 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   PARIS  417 

founders,  with  fore-courts,  colonnades,  terraces,  and 
enclosed  gardens,  stretching  over  acres,  and  dominating 
entire  quarters  in  defiant,  lavish,  insolent  pride.  Here 
and  there  still  towered  above  the  modern  streets  a  huge 
remnant  of  some  castle  of  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth 
century,  such  as  we  may  see  to  this  day  in  Florence, 
Verona,  or  Rome. 

And,  besides  these  castles  and  palaces,  the  closely- 
packed  streets  were  even  more  thickly  strewn  with 
churches,  convents,  and  abbeys.  Notre  Dame,  St. 
Eustache,  St.  Germain  I'Auxerrois,  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
the  Louvre,  the  Palais  Royal,  and  the  Palais  de  Jiistice 
were  hemmed  in  with  a  labyrinth  of  old  and  entangled 
streets.  Buildings,  alleys,  and  even  churches  separated 
the  Louvre  from  the  Ttiileries,  Notre  Dame  from  the 
Palais  de  Justice,  cut  off  Notre  Dame  and  the  Hfael 
de  Ville  from  the  river,  stood  between  Palais  Royal 
and  Louvre,  and  between  the  Pantheon  and  the  garden 
of  the  Luxembourg.  Where  the  graceful  fountain  of 
Victory  now  brightens  one  of  the  gayest  spots  in 
Paris,  the  Place  du  Ckdtelet,  bordered  with  two  immense 
theatres,  colonnades,  gardens,  and  trees,  there  were 
then  the  decayed  remnant  of  the  great  royal  fortress 
and  a  network  of  crooked  and  unsightly  lanes. 

Besides  the  churches,  chapels,  hospitals,  palaces,  and 
castles,  there  also  stood  within  the  circuit  of  the  city 
more  than  two  hundred  religious  houses  for  both  sexes  ; 
abbeys,  convents,  nunneries,  and  fraternities ;  peopled 
with  thousands  of  men  and  women,  leading  separate 
lives,  under  different  vows,  owning  obedience  to  far- 
distant  superiors,  and  possessing  various  immunities. 
The  vast  areas  occupied  by  the  abbeys  of  St.  Germain, 
of  St.  Martin,  of  St.  Victor,  by  the  houses  of  the 
Bernardins,  and  the  Celestins,  and  the  Quinze-  Vingts, 

2D 


41 8  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

were  a  sensible  portion  of  the  whole  area  within  the 
walls.  From  the  then  new  Place  Louis  XV.  to  the 
Bastille,  from  the  Luxembourg  garden  to  the  Porte  St. 
Denis,  Paris  was  a  great  fortified  city  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  crammed  with  thousands  of  sacred  buildings, 
Catholic  and  feudal  institutions,  and  thickly  studded 
with  Italian  palaces,  colleges,  hospitals,  and  offices  in 
the  proud  and  lavish  style  of  Louis  XIV.  Poverty, 
squalor,  uncleanness,  and  vice  jostled  the  magnificence 
of  Princes  and  the  mouldering  creations  of  the  ages  of 
Faith. 

The  difference  between  the  Paris  of  1789  and  the 
Paris  of  1889  is  enormous  ;  but  it  is  very  far  from  true 
that  the  whole  difference  is  gain.  Much  has  been 
gained  in  convenience,  health,  brilliance :  much  has 
been  lost  in  beauty,  variety,  and  historical  tradition. 
To  the  uncultured  votary  of  amusement  the  whole  of 
the  change  represents  progress :  to  the  artist,  the 
antiquarian,  and  the  sentimentalist  it  represents  havoc, 
waste,  and  bad  taste.  It  would  be  well  if  the  tens  of 
thousands  who  delight  in  the  boulevards,  gardens,  and 
sunny  bridges  of  to-day  would  now  and  then  cast  a 
thought  upon  the  priceless  works  of  art,  the  historical 
remains,  and  the  picturesque  charm  which  the  new 
Paris  has  swept  away.  Churches  and  towers,  encrusted 
sculptures  of  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  rare,  inimitable,  irrecoverable  wonders  of  skill 
and  feeling,  have  been  swallowed  up  wholesale  in  the 
modern  'improvements.'  Sixteen  churches  have  dis- 
appeared from  the  Citi  alone :  four  of  them  and  ten 
streets  have  been  carted  away  to  make  the  site  of  a 
single  hospital.  Where  is  the  abbey  of  St.  Victor,  of 
St.  Germain,  of  Ste.  Genevieve,  and  the  Cour  des  Comptes, 
and  the  churches  of.  St.  Andre",  St.  Jacques  de  la 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   PARIS  419 

Boucheric,  Saints  Innocents,  St.  Jean,  and  St.  Fault 
Where  are  the  turrets  of  Saint  Louis,  and  Etienne 
Marcel,  and  Philip  the  Fair?  Where  are  the  quaint 
passages  and  fantastic  gables  preserved  for  us  only 
by  Silvestre,  Perelle,  Meryon,  Gavarni,  Martial,  and 
Gustave  Dore  ? 

It  would  be  idle  to  regret  the  inevitable — more 
especially  when  the  inevitable  means  the  rebuilding 
and  laying-out  of  the  most  brilliant,  most  spacious, 
most  symmetrical  of  modern  cities.  For  us  it  is  enough 
that,  down  to  the  Revolution  of  1789,  Paris  was  an 
intensely  old-world  city  ;  and  that  to-day  it  is  the  type 
of  the  modern  city.  In  the  eighteenth  century  London 
had  lost  every  trace  of  the  fortress,  of  the  feudal  city, 
of  subservience  to  king,  aristocracy,  or  church.  It  had 
neither  ramparts,  nor  traces  of  rampart,  nor  convents, 
nor  proud  palaces,  nor  royal  castles  in  its  midst.  The 
Reformation  had  swept  away  the  monasteries,  the 
aristocracy  were  more  than  half  bourgeois  (at  least 
whilst  they  lived  in  London),  and  the  King  was  a 
popular  country  squire,  who,  in  things  essential,  was 
governed  by  a  Liberal  Parliament.  The  Tower  was  a 
popular  show ;  the  Mayor  and  Corporation  were  a 
powerful,  free,  and  public-spirited  body  ;  the  capital  was 
being  extended  and  beautified  in  the  interest  of  those 
who  lived  in  it ;  and,  in  all  its  main  lines,  the  city  of 
London  was  much  what  it  is  to-day.  It  was  about  one- 
third  more  populous  than  Paris,  better  paved,  better  lit, 
with  a  better  supply  of  water  and  means  of  communi- 
cation, and  with  a  far  superior  system  of  administration. 
It  was  practically  a  modern  city,  even  then  :  it  was  the 
current  type  of  the  modern  city,  and  was  regarded  by 
all  as  a  far  more  agreeable,  more  civilised,  more  splendid 
city  than  Paris.  It  was  natural  enough  that,  when  the 


420  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

liberal  nobles  and  wits  of  France  began  to  visit  England 
(as  in  the  eighteenth  century  they  universally  did),  an 
Anglo-mania  resulted — which  was  one  of  the  main 
causes  of  the  Revolution. 

Some  of  the  great  ornaments  of  Paris  existed  com- 
plete in  1789,  but  they  were  encumbered  with  narrow 
streets  and  cut  off  from  each  other.  The  Louvre,  the 
Tuileries,  the  Palais  Royal  existed  much  as  we  have 
seen  them,  but  they  were  all  divided  from  each  other 
by  blocks  of  buildings  and  intricate  lanes.  The  Palais 
de  Justice,  the  remains  of  the  palace  of  St.  Louis,  and 
Notre  Dame  were  there,  but  were  blocked  up  by  modern 
buildings.  Portions  of  the  Luxembourg  and  of  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  were  standing.  The  Invalides,  the  Ecole  Mili- 
taire,  stood  as  we  know  them  ;  the  Place  de  la  Concorde 
(then  Place  de  Louis  XV.)  was  already  laid  out,  and 
the  two  great  offices  flanking  the  Rue  Royale  were 
already  built. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  bridge  now  called  de  la  Con- 
corde was  not  open,  nor  did  it  abut  on  the  Hall  of  the 
Corps  Ltgislatif ;  there  was  no  Arc  de  rEtoile,  no 
Madeleine,  no  Column  of  Vendome,  no  Place  de  V Optra, 
du  Chatelet,  or  de  la  Bastille.  The  Place  du  Carrousel 
was  blocked  by  buildings,  and  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  the 
the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  did  not  exist.  The  Pantheon  was 
not  quite  finished  ;  the  Louvre  was  not  continued  on 
the  northern  side ;  the  site  of  the  Halles  was  a  net- 
work of  streets  ;  cemeteries  and  charnel-houses  existed 
within  the  city ;  the  quays  were  irregular  and  rude 
structures  ;  the  bridges  were  picturesque  edifices  of  four 
or  five  different  centuries,  and  only  one-third  of  their 
present  number ;  there  were  no  pavements  for  foot- 
passengers,  no  cleansing  of  the  streets,  whilst  open 
sewers  met  one  at  every  turn.  Paris  in  1789  was  much 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   PARIS  421 

what  Rome  was  in  1860 — a  huge,  ancient,  fortified  city, 
filled  with  dense,  squalid,  populous  districts,  interspersed 
with  vast  open  tracts  in  the  hands  of  powerful  nobles  or 
great  monasteries,  and  the  whole  perpetually  dominated 
by  a  bigoted,  selfish,  and  indifferent  absolutism. 

The  population  of  Paris  in  1789,  according  to  the 
latest  and  best  authorities,  was  about  640,000:  in  1889 
it  is  2,240,000.  It  has  thus  increased  exactly  three  and 
one-half  times.  There  is  nothing  abnormal  in  this. 
London  in  the  same  time  has  grown  quite  fourfold, 
and  a  similar  rate  of  increase  has  been  seen  in  Berlin, 
Vienna,  St.  Petersburg,  Lyons,  Marseilles,  and  Rouen. 
The  increase  of  many  English  centres  of  industry,  and 
of  nearly  all  the  American,  has  been  vastly  greater 
and  more  rapid.  Still,  the  increase  of  Paris,  within  a 
hundred  years,  of  three  or  four  times  in  population  and 
five  or  six  times  in  area,  is  a  sufficiently  striking  fact. 
In  1789  there  were  about  one  thousand  streets:  there 
are  now  about  four  thousand.  There  were  fifteen  boule- 
vards :  there  are  now  more  than  one  hundred.  The 
Involutes,  the  Ltixembourg,  the  Bastille,  the  line  of  the 
inner  boulevards,  and  the  Place  Vendome  then  marked 
the  utmost  limits  of  regular  habitations ;  and  thence 
the  open  country  began.  There  were  within  the  barriers 
immense  spaces,  gardens,  and  parks ;  but  they  were 
closed  to  the  public.  Paris  which  is  now  covered  with 
gardens,  parks,  plantations,  and  open  spaces  was  in 
1789  singularly  bare  of  any.  The  Jardin  des  Plantes, 
the  Jardin  des  Ttiileries,  were  royal  possessions ;  the 
Champs  Elysees  and  the  Palais  Royal  were  favourite 
walks.  But  these  were  almost  the  only  accessible 
promenades.  Of  some  forty  places  of  importance  which 
Paris  now  possesses,  few  existed  in  1789,  except  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde,  the  Esplanade  of  the  Invalidest 


422  THE   CITY   IN   HISTORY 

the  Champ  de  Mars,  the  Place  Vendome,  and  the  Place 
Royale  (now  des  Vosges).  Within  the  circuit  of  the 
older  city  there  was  hardly  a  clear  space,  a  plantation, 
a  parterre,  or  a  free  walk,  except  in  the  Parvis  de  Notre 
Dame,  the  MarcJrf  des  Innocents,  and  the  Place  de  la 
Greve,  From  the  Louvre  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  there 
lay  a  labyrinth  of  dark  and  tortuous  lanes,  such  as  we 
may  still  see  in  the  GJietto  of  Rome  or  round  about  the 
Canongate  at  Edinburgh. 

The  change  that  has  taken  place  is  that  of  a  dream, 
or  a  transformation  in  a  theatre.  The  Revolution  came, 
the  Convention,  the  first  Empire,  the  Orleans  monarchy, 
and  the  third  Empire — and  all  is  new.  Streets  only  too 
symmetrical,  straight,  and  long ;  open  spaces  at  the 
junction  of  all  the  principal  streets,  boulevards,  avenues, 
gardens,  fountains,  have  sprung  by  magic  into  the  places 
so  lately  covered  with  labyrinthine  alleys.  As  we  stand 
to-day  in  the  Place  du  Carrousel,  in  the  Place  de  r Optra, 
du  Theatre  Frangais,  du  ChAtelet,  de  la  Bastille,  des 
Innocents,  St.  Michel,  St.  Germain,  Notre  Dame,  or  de 
r Hotel  de  Ville,  each  radiant  with  imposing  buildings, 
stately  avenues,  monuments,  fountains,  columns,  and 
colonnades,  with  everything  that  modern  architecture 
can  devise  of  spacious,  airy,  and  gay,  it  is  hard  indeed  to 
understand  how  in  so  few  years  (and  much  of  it  within 
the  memory  of  men  still  living)  all  this  has  been  created 
over  the  ruins  of  the  dense,  dark,  intricate  streets  of  the 
last  century,  where  lanes  still  followed  the  ramparts  of 
Louis  the  Stout  and  Philip  Augustus,  where  the  rem- 
nants existed  of  chAteaux  built  by  mediaeval  seigneurs, 
or  during  the  civil  wars  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries. 

The  clearance  has  been  most  cruel  of  all  in  the  old 
Ctttf,  the  original  Paris  of  the  earliest  ages.  Down  to 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   PARIS  423 

the  Revolution  it  had  a  population  of  about  20,000, 
which  has  now  almost  wholly  disappeared,  along  with 
the  sixteen  churches,  the  oratories,  and  streets.  The 
ancient  island — Lutetia — is  now  occupied  almost  solely 
by  six  enormous  public  buildings  ;  and  the  spot,  which 
for  eighteen  centuries  has  been  busy  with  the  hum  of 
a  city  life  of  intense  activity  and  movement,  is  now 
covered  only  by  a  lonely  but  glorious  cathedral,  an 
enormous  hospital,  a  huge  barrack,  courts,  offices,  and 
official  buildings.  The  oldest  bit  of  Paris,  the  oldest 
bit  of  city  in  all  Northern  Europe,  now  looks  for  the 
most  part  like  a  new  quarter  laid  out  on  some  vacant 
space.  Notre  Dame,  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  the  Concier- 
gerie,  have  been  restored  and  furbished  up  till  they 
almost  might  pass  for  modern  buildings.  The  barrack, 
the  hospital,  the  geometric  streets,  the  open  square, 
might  do  credit  to  Chicago.  It  is  all  very  fine,  impos- 
ing, spacious,  and  new.  But  a  groan  may  be  forgiven 
to  those  who  can  remember  the  mystic  portals  of  Notre 
Dame  with  the  gallery  of  the  kings,  surrounded  with 
houses  which  seemed  to  lean  upon  the  mother-church 
for  comfort  and  support,  before  the  restorer  had  worked 
his  will  upon  the  crumbling,  dark,  pathetic  fragments 
of  carving,  whilst  the  noblest  fagade  ever  raised  by 
northern  Gothic  builders  still  looked  like  a  great  medi- 
aeval church,  and  not  like  an  objet  d'art  to  be  gazed  at 
in  a  museum. 

This  transformation,  the  most  astounding  that  Europe 
can  show,  fills  us  ever  anew  with  a  profound  sense  of  the 
power  which  for  a  century  has  animated  the  municipal 
government  of  Paris ;  of  the  energy,  wealth,  indus- 
trial skill,  artistic  imagination,  and  scientific  accom- 
plishments which  have  gone  to  the  making  of  it.  To 
plough  miles  and  miles  of  broad  new  boulevards  through 


424  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

the  most  crowded  lines  of  an  ancient,  populous,  and 
busy  city ;  to  transform  a  net-work  of  Ghettos  into  a 
splendid  series  of  avenues,  squares,  and  gardens  ;  to 
eviscerate  the  heart  of  a  great  capital,  and  to  create 
symmetry,  sunniness,  convenience,  gaiety,  and  variety 
out  of  inveterate  confusion,  gloom,  discomfort,  and 
squalor — this  impresses  the  mind  with  the  visible  signs 
of  imperial  might  in  the  ruler,  and  inexhaustible  versa- 
tility and  adaptability  in  the  governed. 

It  is  a  different  thing  when  a  Frederick  plans  a  new 
city  in  Berlin,  or  when  a  Republic  creates  itself  a  capital 
in  Washington.  But  in  Paris  the  capital  existed  ;  with 
eighteen  centuries  of  history,  with  monarchic,  feudal, 
ecclesiastical,  municipal  institutions  by  the  thousand, 
rooted  for  ages  in  the  soil,  and  buttressed  by  long 
epochs  of  prescription,  privilege,  law,  and  superstition. 
Not  for  an  hour  has  the  capital  ceased  to  be  the  living 
heart  of  France ;  not  for  a  day  has  its  own  activity 
been  interrupted,  or  the  lives  of  some  million  or  so 
of  citizens  been  broken.  Republic,  Consulate,  Empire, 
Monarchy,  have  succeeded  each  other  in  turn.  Revolu- 
tions, sieges,  massacres,  anarchy,  tyranny,  parliaments, 
dictators,  and  communes  have  in  turn  had  their  seat 
in  Paris,  and  have  occupied  her  streets,  buildings,  and 
monuments.  But  under  all,  the  transformation  of  old 
Paris  into  new  Paris  has  gone  on.  Bastille,  Chdtelet, 
Temple,  Tuileries,  have  been  swept  away :  enormous 
boulevards  and  avenues  have  torn  their  huge  gaps  like 
cannon-shot  through  ancient  quarters  :  abbeys,  churches, 
palaces,  hospitals,  convents,  gardens,  halls,  and  theatres 
have  disappeared  like  unsubstantial  visions,  and  have 
left  not  a  rack  behind.  As  the  vacant  spaces  are 
cleared,  new  streets,  theatres,  halls,  and  squares  spring 
Up.  A  thousand  new  fancies  and  hundreds  of  new 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   PARIS  425 

monuments  take  their  place  with  inexhaustible  in- 
vention. The  city  grows  more  populous,  more  rich, 
more  brilliant  year  by  year.  The  busy  life  which  is 
silenced  in  the  Cite,  or  by  the  new  boulevards,  avenues, 
and  places,  bursts  forth  with  a  louder  din  elsewhere. 
Every  creation  of  artistic  imagination,  every  invention 
of  science,  is  instantly  brought  into  service  and  adapted 
to  modern  life.  And  with  all  this  whirl  of  change  and 
action,  Paris  remains  in  its  essence  an  ancient,  and  not 
a  modern,  city  ;  a  very  ancient  city  to  him  who  knows 
its  history,  and  can  recall  the  memorials  of  its  past.  To 
this  day,  such  an  one  can  retrace  her  successive  circuits, 
her  ramparts  and  barriers  of  successive  dynasties  ;  he 
can  track  out  the  spots  made  memorable  by  Julian, 
by  Clovis,  by  Philip  Augustus,  by  Francis  I.  and 
Henry  IV.,  by  Abailard,  and  Heloi'se,  and  Jeanne  d'Arc, 
by  Dante,  by  Descartes,  by  Corneille.  Some  two 
hundred  streets  still  bear  the  names  of  saints,  each 
recalling  some  convent  of  the  Merovingian,  Carlo- 
vingian,  or  Capetian  dynasty,  some  one  of  the  thou- 
sands of  churches,  chapels,  oratories,  and  religious 
houses  which  once  filled  Paris.  To  the  historical  mind, 
the  St.  Germains,  the  St.  Thomases,  the  St.  Andre's,  the 
St.  Martins,  the  St.  Victors,  the  St.  Bernards,  which  we 
read  inscribed  at  the  street  corner,  recall  a  series  of 
local  memorials  which  reach  back  for  a  thousand  years. 
Here  St.  Louis  stood  and  prayed ;  here  the  Grand 
Master  of  the  Templars  was  burned  ;  here  Jeanne  d'Arc 
fell  desperately  wounded ;  here  Moliere  died ;  here 
Corneille  lived ;  here  Coligny  was  murdered,  here 
Henry  IV.  was  stabbed ;  here  Voltaire  died,  and  here 
Camille  Desmoulins  opened  the  Revolution. 

Here,  as  everywhere  in  human  life,  we  must  take  the 
evil  with  the  good.     It  is  idle,  peevish,  retrograde,  to 


426  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

rail  at  the  inevitable,  or  to  cry  out  for  the  past.  There 
has  been  awful,  wanton,  brutal  destruction  ;  there  have 
been  corruption  and  plunder ;  there  has  been  vile  art, 
making  itself  the  pandar  to  folly  and  lust ;  there  have 
been  cruel  disregard  of  the  poor  and  inhuman  orgies  of 
wealth  and  power,  in  all  this  series  of  transformation 
scenes  which  Paris  has  seen.  No  man  can  again  recall 
to  us  the  exquisite  fancies  carved  on  stone  and  on 
jewelled  windows  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  cen- 
turies. Perhaps  it  was  better  to  cart  them  away  than 
to  furbish  them  anew  with  gewgaw  restorations,  But 
modern  life  in  a  vast  city  could  not  endure  this  plethora 
of  obsolete  churches  and  useless  convents  in  its  midst, 
and  the  friars,  black,  white,  and  grey,  had  to  go  with  all 
their  belongings.  Dark  alleys  are  delicious  in  etchings  ; 
but  they  are  the  nests  of  disease,  vice,  and  death.  A 
city  of  two  millions  cannot  breathe  within  the  winding 
lanes  which  sufficed  the  burghers  of  the  fourteenth 
century  within  their  gloomy  ramparts.  Haussmann 
and  his  myrmidons  may  have  amassed  fortunes ;  but 
the  world  is  still  searching,  lantern  in  hand  like  Diogenes, 
for  a  wise,  just,  incorruptible  municipal  authority.  The 
art  which  has  created  modern  Paris  is  not  high  art,  is 
not  true  art,  is  in  many  ways  most  meretricious  art ; 
and  in  its  chef  d'ceuvre,  the  new  Opera,  it  has  reached 
the  pinnacle  of  vulgar  display.  But,  take  it  all  and  all, 
Paris  can  show  us  the  brightest,  most  inventive,  and  least 
mesquin  street  architecture  which  the  nineteenth  century 
can  achieve,  and  certainly  the  most  imperial  civic 
organisation  which  Europe  can  produce. 

There  is  much  to  be  said  on  all  sides  of  this  complex 
problem  ;  the  catholic,  the  legitimist,  the  republican,  the 
antiquarian,  the  artist,  the  poet,  the  socialist,  the  econo- 
mist, even  the  tourist,  may  be  listened  to  with  sympathy 


THE   TRANSFORMATION    OF   PARIS  427 

in  turn.  Let  us  gnash  our  teeth  at  the  tale  told  us  by 
the  student  of  old  art ;  let  us  drop  a  tear  over  the  wail 
of  the  dispossessed  orders  ;  let  us  linger  over  every  frag- 
ment of  the  past  which  the  historian  can  point  out  as 
spared  in  the  havoc  ;  let  us  listen  to  the  story  of  the 
dispossessed  workman  ;  let  us  study  the  statistics  of  the 
old  and  the  new  city ;  let  us  stroll  with  the  flaneur  on 
the  boulevards  ;  but  let  us  not  say  that  it  is  either  alto- 
gether evil  or  altogether  good.  Me  Hern  Paris  is  the 
creation  of  the  Revolution  of  1789,  and,  like  most  of  the 
creations  of  that  mighty  and  pregnant  epoch,  it  has  the 
soul  of  good  in  things  evil ;  deplorable  waste  and  error 
in  the  midst  of  inevitable  and  indispensable  reform. 

A  city  is  made  to  live  in.  Now,  a  serious  defect  in 
old  Paris  was  that  it  was  a  city  in  which  men  died. 
Down  to  the  Revolution  of  1789,  the  annual  deaths 
exceeded  the  annual  births.  Since  the  Revolution  the 
births  exceed  the  deaths.  The  birth-rate  in  Paris  is  low, 
and  the  death-rate  is  high,  as  compared  with  that  of 
London  and  English  towns  to-day ;  but  the  birth-rate 
of  Paris  is  now  much  in  excess  of  the  death-rate. 
The  total  deaths  in  modern  Paris  are  but  double  the 
actual  deaths  in  1789,  though  the  population  is  now 
nearly  four  times  as  great.  The  death-rate  of  old 
Paris  was  far  higher  than  that  of  any  actual  city  of 
Western  Europe,  and  for  a  parallel  to  it  we  must  now  go 
to  the  cities  of  the  East.  The  death-rate  of  Paris  is 
still  high,  for  it  is  largely  increased  by  the  almost 
deliberate  destruction  of  infant  life.  But  before  the 
Revolution,  we  must  take  it  that  some  three  or  four 
thousand  lives  were  annually  sacrificed  to  insanitary 
conditions.  The  sanitary  condition  of  Paris  in  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  was,  indeed,  that  of  Cairo  or 
Constantinople.  Drinking-water  taken  direct  from  the 


428  THE  CITY   IN    HISTORY 

Seine,  open  sewers,  cemeteries,  and  charnel-houses  in  the 
heart  of  the  city,  infected  and  squalid  lanes,  dirt,  decay, 
and  disorder  made  life  precarious,  and  scattered  disease 
wholesale.  The  marvel  is  that  pestilence  was  ever 
absent. 

This  was  no  accident ;  nor  was  it  due  to  apathy  or 
ignorance  in  the  people  of  Paris.  It  was  a  direct  result 
of  the  Old  Regime— the  deliberate  act  of  the  Monarchy, 
the  Church,  and  the  Nobility.  Its  causes  were  political. 
Paris  presented  in  herself  an  epitome  of  all  the  vices, 
follies,  inhumanities,  and  solecisms  of  the  Old  System. 
Everything  official  was  effete,  barbarous,  injurious  to 
modern  civilisation ;  all  that  prerogative,  privilege,  super- 
stition, and  caste  could  do  to  crush  a  great  capital,  was 
done.  No  consideration  of  the  health,  comfort,  or  needs 
of  the  great  city  affected  Louis  XIV.  or  Louis  XV.  They 
and  their  courts  lived  at  Versailles,  given  up  to  ambition, 
display,  or  vice.  Paris  and  the  Parisians  existed  to 
produce  fine  things,  to  give  splendour  to  the  monarch}-, 
society  to  the  nobility,  fat  benefices  to  the  church.  The 
meanest  fraternity  of  friars,  the  most  scandalous  abb£, 
the  most  rapacious  courtier,  was  of  more  account  than 
the  corporate  officials  of  Paris.  Vested  interests,  sacred 
foundations,  privileged  rights,  blocked  every  path  to 
reform  and  progress.  The  king's  palaces,  the  king's 
fortresses,  the  king's  institutions  were  inviolable,  sacred, 
immutable.  An  obsolete  foundation  of  bygone  super- 
stition was  the  cause  of  God.  And  the  caprice  of  a 
great  noble  was  a  high  matter  of  state. 

Old  Paris  consisted  of  dark  and  crooked  lanes,  because 
in  the  Middle  Ages  cities  were  so  built.  To  build  new 
streets,  to  plan  fresh  thoroughfares,  would  disturb  some 
church,  destroy  some  oratory,  inconvenience  some 
marquis,  or  displace  some  convent.  To  pave  streets,  to 


THE   TRANSFORMATION    OF   PARIS  429 

make  sewers,  to  open  spaces,  to  remove  cemeteries,  to 
supply  pure  water,  and  to  obtain  fresh  air  would  cost 
money,  would  affect  privileges,  or  invade  some  right.  But 
the  money  of  Parisians  was  required  to  pay  the  king's 
dues,  not  to  improve  Paris.  All  privileges  were  above  the 
law,  and  as  sacred  as  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  '  Rights,' 
in  the  sense  of  privileges,  came  before  law,  before 
necessity,  before  humanity,  decency,  or  public  duty.  The 
salus  populi  was  the  infima  lex — the  lowest  and  last  con- 
sideration which  authority  recognised.  Prescription  and 
the  will  of  an  absolute  despot — these  were  the  sole 
standards  of  public  convenience.  And  the  result  was 
that  they  made  permanent  and  astounding  accretions  of 
public  inconvenience.  Something  was  done  by  Louis  XIV. 
to  add  magnificence  to  the  capital  by  some  royal  palaces, 
churches,  and  boulevards ;  and  early  in  the  reign  of 
Louis  XV.  the  spirit  of  social  improvement,  which  culmi- 
nated in  the  States-General  of  1789,  began  to  make 
itself  felt.  A  few  improvements  were  made,  new  streets 
were  built  on  the  outskirts,  the  cemeteries  were  closed, 
and  the  water-supply  was  reformed.  From  the  middle 
of  the  century  a  series  of  efforts  were  made,  and  not  the 
least  by  Turgot  and  by  his  father,  the  Provost.  But 
before  privilege  and  prerogative  the  best  efforts  failed. 
It  needed  a  revolution  to  reform  the  city  of  Paris.  And 
the  Revolution  not  only  reformed,  but  transformed  it 
with  a  vengeance. 

The  physical  disorder  of  old  Paris  was  merely  the 
reflection — indeed,  but  a  pale  reflection — of  the  social, 
political,  moral  disorder  of  the  Old  Regime.  The  organi- 
sation of  the  city  was  a  chaos  of  competing  authorities, 
a  tangle  of  obsolete  privileges,  and  a  nest  of  scandalous 
abuses.  Anomalous  courts  jostled  and  scrambled  for 
jurisdiction  ;  ancient  gilds  and  corporations  blocked 


430  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

every  reform  ;  atrocious  injustice  and  inveterate  corrup- 
tion reigned  high-handed  in  the  name  of  king,  noble,  or 
church.  A  valuable  work  of  great  research  appeared 
(June  1889),  under  the  direction  of  an  important  com- 
mission of  historians,  which  throws  new  light  from  public 
documents  on  the  condition  of  Paris  under  the  old 
system.1  We  may  see  in  it  an  astounding  picture  of 
misrule.  The  Parlement,  the  Hotel  de  Vil/e,  the  Chdtelet, 
the  Governor  of  Paris,  the  Governor  of  the  Bastille,  the 
Minister  of  Paris,  the  University,  the  trade-gilds,  the 
church,  the  religious  foundations,  all  claim  privileges, 
jurisdictions,  rights,  immunities,  which  cross  and  re- 
cross  each  other  in  continual  conflict. 

There  was  no  real  municipality,  no  true  elective 
representation  of  the  citizens.  Certain  officials,  named 
by  the  Crown,  professed  to  speak  and  to  act  in  the  name 
of  the  city.  Civil  and  criminal  justice  was  shared  by 
various  bodies  under  quite  indefinite  authority.  The 
Chdtelet  absorbed  in  the  seventeenth  century  no  less 
than  nineteen  baronial  jurisdictions ;  but  the  Arch- 
bishopric and  several  abbeys  retained  their  own  distinct 
courts.  The  ChAtelet,  the  Hdtel  de  Vtlle,  the  church, 
each  divided  Paris  into  distinct  sets  of  local  subdivisions. 
Taxation,  public  works,  justice,  police,  markets,  public 
health,  even  hospitals  and  charities,  were  under  the 
control  of  different  authorities,  with  no  defined  limits. 
Interminable  disputes  between  the  different  authorities 
ensued.  Of  the  streets,  one  in  ten  was  a  cul-de-sac. 
Although  the  area  of  Paris  is  now  six  or  seven  times 
greater  than  it  was  before  the  Revolution,  and  though 
the  population  is  nearly  four  times  as  great,  there  are 
little  more  than  twice  as  many  houses.  There  were 

1  L'£tat  de  Paris  en  1789.     Etudes  et  Documents  stir  1'Ancien  Regime 
a  Paris.    H.  Monin.— Paris:    Jouast,  etc.  etc.  1889. 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   PARIS  431 

30,000  beggars  in  Paris.  Down  to  1779  the  ancient 
foundation  of  St.  Louis,  the  Quinze-  Vingts,  held  an 
immense  area  between  the  Louvre  and  the  Palais  Royal, 
blocking  up  both,  as  well  as  the  Rue  St.  Honore  and  the 
Rue  Richelieu.  This  enclosure,  which  was  a  privileged 
asylum,  contained  a  population  of  from  five  to  six 
thousand,  not  only  licensed  to  beg,  but  bound  to  live  by 
begging.  It  was  not  until  1786  that  the  cemetery  and 
charnel-house  of  the  Saints  Innocents  was  suppressed. 
It  is  hardly  credible  that  little  more  than  a  hundred 
years  have  passed  since,  in  the  densest  quarter  of  Paris, 
long  colonnades  of  grinning  sculls  and  festering  burying- 
grounds  were  standing  where  now  we  have  the  lovely 
fountain  of  Lescot  and  Goujon,  transformed  indeed,  and 
almost  more  lovely  in  its  transformation,  in  the  centre 
of  the  bright  and  glowing  square  that  recalls  Verona  or 
Genoa. 

The  censorship  of  all  writings  '  contrary  to  law,  to  the 
Catholic  faith,  to  public  morals,  or  judicial  prerogative,' 
opened  a  wide  door  for  arbitrary  power.  In  the  years 
immediately  preceding  the  Revolution,  the  Parlement  of 
Paris  suppressed  sixty-five  works.  One  of  these  is  con- 
demned as  tending  '  a  soulever  les  esprits.'  Another  is 
condemned  as  a  libel  on  Cagliostro !  Sunday  labour, 
eating  meat  in  Lent,  neglecting  to  dress  the  house-front 
on  a  religious  procession,  playing  hazard,  '  speaking  so 
as  to  alarm  the  public,'  are  some  of  the  grounds  of  a 
criminal  sentence.  The  most  revolting  public  execu- 
tions were  common  in  all  parts  of  the  city.  As  if  to 
accustom  all  to  the  sight  of  cruel  punishments,  some  fifty 
places  are  recorded  as  the  scenes  of  these  horrible  public 
exposures.  The  sentence  sets  out  the  details  of  these 
executions  in  all  their  hideous  particulars.  Ledit  so- 
and-so  shall  be  taken  to  Notre  Dame,  where  his  hand 


432  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

shall  be  chopped  off,  then  taken  on  a  cart  to  another 
place,  where  he  shall  be  broken  alive  on  a  wheel,  and  so 
left '  as  long  as  it  shall  please  God  to  prolong  his  life ' ; 
then  his  body  shall  be  burned  and  the  ashes  scattered 
to  the  winds.  A  working-man,  for  stealing  some  linen, 
is  condemned  to  be  hung  on  a  gibbet  and  strangled  by 
the  public  executioner.  It  was  not  till  1780  that  pre- 
liminary torture  of  an  accused  person  was  abolished : 
torture  as  part  of  the  sentence  was  retained  till  the 
Revolution.  The  personal  punishments  included  the 
pillory,  branding,  flogging,  maiming,  strangling,  breaking 
alive,  and  burning.  This  is  how  the  ancient  Monarchy 
prepared  the  people  for  the  guillotine. 

The  Revolution  has  swept  away  all  this,  and  new 
Paris  has  sprung  to  life  out  of  the  Revolution,  like 
Athene  from  the  head  of  the  thunderer.  Out  of 
extreme  confusion,  symmetry  ;  out  of  ancient  privilege, 
absolute  democracy ;  out  of  paralysis  of  rival  authori- 
ties, intense  concentration  of  authority  ;  out  of  squalor, 
splendour ;  out  of  barbarism,  the  latest  devices  of  civilisa- 
tion. Yet,  for  all  these  changes,  Paris  is  not  Chicago  or 
Washington  ;  it  is  no  fine  new  city  built  on  an  open 
plain.  Her  nineteen  centuries  of  history  are  still  there  ; 
the  gay  boulevards  stand  on  the  foundation-stones  of  a 
thousand  structures  of  the  past ;  the  placards  on  each 
omnibus  recall  the  names  of  mighty  centres  of  faith, 
wisdom,  devotion,  purity,  love.  The  religious  passion, 
the  civic  ardour,  the  republican  zeal,  the  wit,  the  science, 
the  electric  will,  the  social  ideals,  the  devotion  to  ideas 
— are  all  there  as  of  old. 


CHAPTER    XV 

THE   TRANSFORMATION    OF   LONDON 
I.  London  in   1887 

A  HUGE  city  like  this  of  ours,  with  such  boundless 
possibilities  before  it  for  good  or  for  ill,  on  the  one  hand 
perpetually  becoming  more  unmanageable  and  more 
exhausting  to  life,  on  the  other  hand  continually  throw- 
ing up  unexpected  signs  of  vitality  and  hope — such  a 
city  stands  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  It  is  already  by 
far  the  most  inorganic  mass  of  habitations  that  ever 
cumbered  the  planet,  and  to  the  bulk  of  its  population, 
though  not  to  the  fortunate  minority,  it  is  not  very 
cheerful.  And  yet,  even  now  it  is  the  healthiest  of  all 
capitals  ;  and  in  certain  aspects  of  a  city  one  of  the  best 
ordered  ;  to  a  very  few,  one  of  the  pleasantest.  Which 
is  to  prevail  in  the  future — the  boundless  evil  or  the 
boundless  good  ? 

Take  the  first,  the  darker  side.  Here  is  the  hugest 
assemblage  of  buildings  ever  piled  by  men  on  one  spot 
of  earth.  For  three  centuries  one  of  the  great  fears  of 
thinking  persons  has  been  the  enormous  growth  of 
London ;  and  yet,  till  about  a  hundred  years  ago, 
neither  its  population  nor  its  area  was  what  we  should 
now  call  abnormal.  But  since  the  last  hundred  years 
it  has  advanced  by  leaps  and  bounds,  increasing  its 
population  fourfold  within  this  century  and  its  area  at 

2  E 


434  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

least  ten  or  fifteen  fold.  Even  in  our  own  lifetime  the 
area  of  London  has  increased  at  least  fivefold,  and  its 
population  between  two  and  threefold.  So  that  now 
we  have  a  continuous  population  of  some  4,000,000 
packed  in  an  area  of  more  than  one  hundred  square 
miles,  with  nearly  2000  miles  of  streets,  measuring 
hardly  anywhere  less  than  ten  or  eleven  miles  in  a 
straight  line. 

Every  year  70,000  souls,  roughly  speaking,  are  added 
by  immigration  and  births  ;  every  year  more  square 
miles  are  added  to  the  area.  Year  by  year  some  20,000 
immigrants  press  into  this  city :  that  is  the  population 
of  a  fair  county  town  ;  so  that  every  ten  years  there  is 
added  to  London  by  immigration  alone  a  city  as  large 
as  Bristol  or  Lisbon  ;  and  by  the  entire  series  of  causes, 
a  new  city  as  large  as  St.  Petersburg  or  Vienna.  And 
thus  already,  in  this  corner  of  the  Thames,  there  is 
huddled  together  about  one-sixth  of  the  entire  popula- 
tion of  England.  '  Where  is  it  to  stop  ? '  we  ask,  as 
the  tide  of  immigrants  pours  in,  and  great  armies  of 
builders  are  perpetually  laying  fresh  acres  of  meadow 
under  brick. 

Size  and  numbers  are  not  necessarily  bad  things  per 
se.  But  unhappily  the  size  and  numbers  of  London 
have  alarming  consequences  of  their  own.  Great  cities 
have  to  grow  organically,  with  some,  kind  of  self- 
adaptation  to  their  development.  But  the  increase  of 
London  defies  adaptation  and  adjustment.  The  70,000 
new  souls  a  year  arrive  before  London  has  time  to  con- 
sider what  she  can  do  with  them.  The  bricks  pour 
down  in  irregular  heaps,  almost  as  if,  in  some  cataclysm 
or  tornado,  it  were  raining  bricks  out  of  heaven  on  the 
earth  below.  The  huge  pall  of  smoke  gets  denser  and 
more  sulphurous,  stretching  out,  they  say,  some  thirty 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  435 

miles  into  the  country,  till  Berkshire,  Bucks,  Herts,  and 
Kent  are  beginning  to  be  polluted  by  its  cloud.     From 
Charing  Cross  or  the  Royal  Exchange  a  man  has  to  walk 
some  five  or  six  miles  before  he  can   see  the  blessed 
meadows  or  breathe  the  country  air.     Few  of  us  ever 
saw  more  than  half  of  the  city  we  live  in,  and  some  of 
us  never  saw  nine-tenths  of  it.     We  all  live  more  or  less 
in  soot  and  fog,  in  smoky,  dusty,  contaminated  air,  in 
which  trees  will  no  longer  grow  to  full  size,  and  the 
sulphurous  vapour  of  which  eats  away  the  surface  of 
stone.     The  beautiful  river — our  once  silver  Thames — 
is  a  turbid,  muddy  receptacle  of  refuse  ;    at  times  in- 
describably nasty  and   unwholesome.      The  water  we 
drink  at  times  comes  perilously  near  to  be  injurious  to 
health.      Our  burying-places,  old  and  new,  are  a  per- 
petual  anxiety  and    danger.      Our   sewers   pour    forth 
5,500,000   tons   of  sewage   per  week,  almost  all  of  it 
wastefully  and  dangerously  discharged.     An  immense 
proportion  of  our  working  population  are  insufficiently 
housed,  in  cheerless,  comfortless,  and  even  unhealthy 
lodgings.     Not  a  few  of  these  are  miserable  dens  or 
squalid  cabins  unfit  for  human  dwelling-place.     Every 
few  years  some  epidemic  breaks  out  which  carries  off 
its   thousands.      In   some   four- fifths   of    London    the 
conditions  of  life  are  sadly  depressing  and  sordid,  with 
none  of  the  advantages  which  city  life  affords.     The 
amusements,  such  as  they  are,  are  often  unworthy  of 
us  ;  the  resources  of  health  and  recreation  are  too  few  ; 
whilst  the  dangers  to  life,  to  morality,  to  the  intelligence, 
are  very  real  and  ever  present. 

Is  this  monster  city  again  to  double  and  treble  itself? 
its  water  supply  to  get  still  more  precarious  and  de- 
fective, are  its  dead  still  more  to  endanger  the  living, 
its  dreariness  to  grow  vaster,  and  its  smoke  even 


436  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

thicker?  It  is  a  strange  paradox  that,  whilst  those 
who  have  the  means  are  always  seeking  to  get  away 
from  London,  those  who  are  destitute  are  perpetually 
pouring  into  London  ;  whilst  it  is  the  ambition  of  every 
well-to-do  Londoner  to  retire  to  freedom  in  the  country 
or  in  the  suburbs,  it  is  the  instinct  of  every  countryman 
in  distress  to  find  his  way  up  to  London.  There  are 
tens  of  thousands  who  prefer  to  loaf  or  starve  in  the 
streets  rather  than  to  work  in  comfort  in  the  fields. 
Nearly  one-third  of  the  annual  increase  of  London  is 
due  to  immigration  ;  and  the  immigrants  are  in  great 
measure  both  destitute  and  incapable.  Is  it  that  our 
agricultural  system  is  sorely  at  fault ;  that  labour  in  the 
country  is  become  so  flat,  stale,  and  unprofitable,  with 
opportunities  so  wretched,  hopes  so  few,  and  life  so 
weary  and  sordid,  that  the  countryman  at  all  risks  will 
crave  the  crowd,  the  glare,  the  excitement  of  the  city, 
even  though  it  offers  an  almost  certain  wretchedness 
and  squalor?  If  this  be  so,  if  our  civilisation  has  come 
to  this,  that  the  labourer  finds  the  country  intolerable,  a 
complete  resettlement  of  rural  life  is  at  hand. 

But  we  cannot  attribute  too  much  to  this ;  for  this 
vast  and  rapid  increase  of  great  cities  is  a  feature  of 
modern  civilisation.  It  is  equally  marked  under 
despotic  or  democratic  Governments,  in  monarchies 
and  republics,  with  a  peasant  proprietary  or  a  system 
of  great  domains,  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  in  every 
race,  in  both  hemispheres,  in  Asia,  Africa,  and  America, 
as  well  as  in  Europe.  Paris,  St.  Petersburg,  Berlin, 
Vienna,  Rome,  Brussels,  New  York,  Lyons,  Marseilles, 
Milan,  Munich,  Moscow,  Turin,  Bombay,  and  New 
Orleans,  have  increased  in  fifty  years  more  than  London ; 
and  Glasgow,  Hamburg,  Philadelphia,  and  Chicago  in- 
crease at  a  far  higher  ratio.  So  the  increase  of  London, 


THE   TRANSFORMATION    OF   LONDON  437 

tremendous  as  it  is,  has  nothing  exceptional  about  it 
but  its  enormous  positive  volume.  The  increase  itself, 
and  even  the  rate  of  increase,  is  at  bottom  the  result  of 
modern  industrial  life  and  modern  mechanical  resources. 

Of  this  vast  problem,  or  wilderness  of  problems,  it  is 
enough  to  touch  on  one  or  two  ;  and  those  rather  of  the 
simpler  and  material  sort.  Take  the  single  one  of  water 
supply,  a  necessity  of  life,  and  the  condition  of  health  of 
4,000,000  of  Englishmen.  It  is  inadequate  in  quantity, 
inconvenient  in  supply,  very  various  in  quality,  and 
exposed  to  one  or  two  immense  risks  of  pollution.  We 
are  at  times  drinking  water  that  is  minutely  but  sensibly 
infected  with  deposit  Though  the  recuperative  energy 
of  moving  water  usually  restores  it  to  a  fairly  wholesome 
condition,  we  all  know  that  London  is  not  quite  safe 
from  a  catastrophe.  A  single  epidemic  might  any 
summer  make  the  water  of  London  as  deadly  as  the 
climate  of  Vera  Cruz.  Now,  the  death-rate  of  Vera 
Cruz  in  London  would  mean  an  extra  mortality  of 
nearly  200,000.  The  morbid  infection  of  the  Lea  and 
the  Upper  Thames  would  in  six  months  produce  a 
pestilence  as  appalling  as  any  in  History.  And  yet  for 
twenty  years  we  have  talked  about  a  safe  and  adequate 
water  supply.  The  supply  of  London  per  head  is 
below  that  of  most  Continental  cities,  immensely  below 
that  of  most  American  towns,  and  about  a  quarter  of 
that  of  Rome.  The  house-cistern  system  is  one  of  those 
survivals  of  barbarism  which  shame  modern  mechanical 
contrivance.  Its  dangers,  inconveniences,  and  nastiness 
are  the  text  of  every  sanitary  reformer.  And  still  we 
live  on  with  the  lead  cistern  and  the  ball-cock,  whilst 
our  statesmen  are  debating  about  a  railroad  to  Uganda 
and  the  delimitation  of  Siam. 

Turn  from  water  to  fire.     Our  means  in  London  of 


43^  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

dealing  with  fire  are  far  below  that  of  every  wealthy  city 
in  the  world,  varying  from  one-third  to  one-tenth  of  the 
provision  which  the  most  advanced  nations  make.  It  is 
true  that  London  as  yet  has  escaped,  owing  to  its  modes 
of  construction  and  of  warming  and  its  general  habits. 
But  a  great  conflagration  in  London  is  not  impossible, 
and  the  means  of  dealing  with  it,  if  it  ever  came, 
are  ludicrously  inadequate.  London,  with  its  boundless 
wealth  and  its  interminable  area,  has  a  fire  brigade  not 
only  relatively,  but  actually,  less  than  those  of  Paris, 
Berlin,  New  York,  St.  Petersburg,  and  Hamburg. 
Either  our  friends  on  each  side  of  the  Atlantic  are 
foolishly  timid,  or  we  in  this  matter  arc  criminally 
negligent. 

London  has  swallowed  up  and  holds  festering  in  its 
midst  scores  and  scores  of  graveyards  which  still  arc 
and  long  will  be  a  danger  to  the  living.  Year  by  year 
the  vast  city  expands,  and  is  already  reaching  the  more 
modern  cemeteries  which  it  is  about  to  engulf,  adding 
further  dangers  and  fresh  poison.  The  terrible  mortality 
in  the  larger  town  hospitals — often  double  that  of  small 
country  infirmaries — tells  its  significant  and  cruel  tale. 
The  whole  of  our  arrangements  for  mortuaries,  inter- 
ment, and  the  due  check  on  contagion  are  utterly  in 
the  rear  of  our  resources  and  our  science.  What  a 
picture  of  a  civilised  community  at  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century  !  A  noble  river  turned  into  a  huge 
open  sewer,  with  its  tide  carrying  millions  of  tons  of 
refuse  up  and  down  under  our  eyes.  Contagion 
scattered  broadcast  by  carelessness,  ignorance,  greed. 
Our  sewers  perpetually  discharging  deadly  gases  into 
the  rooms  where  our  children  and  our  young  ones  are 
asleep  ;  the  air  choked  with  vapours  injurious  to  animal 
and  even  vegetable  life ;  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  439 

workers  housed  in  lodgings  which  are  a  standing  source 
of  corruption,  misery,  and  disease. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  other  side  of  the  picture — 

what  our  great  city  might  be,  ought  to  be,  will  be — if 

we  in  this  generation  and  the  next  can  only  be  brought 

in  time  to  know  our  duty,  our  urgent  necessities  and 

our  imminent  dangers.     I  am  very  far  from  thinking  all 

this  can  be  remedied  by  Act  of  Parliament,  and  like  the 

carter  in  ^Esop's  fable  want  to  call  upon  the  Hercules 

of  Westminster.      We  are  all  so  much  bewildered  and 

stunned  by  the  whirl  and  scream  of  the  parliamentary 

machine  that  if  a  man  only  says  that  such  and  such  an 

improvement  in  our  life  ought  to  be  accomplished,  it  is 

thought  that  he  is  asking  for  an  Act  of  Parliament  to 

carry  out  his  end.     It  is  a  thing  for  society,  for  the  rich, 

for  the  poor,  for  the  thoughtful,  for  the  energetic,  for  the 

clergy,  for  the  municipalities,  for  the  reformers,  for  the 

working  men  and  the  working  women,  for  the  people — 

for  us  all  to  take  up  and  to  work  on  till  we  get  it.     And 

it  may  be  said  :  it  is  idle  to  appeal  to  the  public  about 

the  death-rate  of  cities,  about  sewers,  and  museums, 

and  cemeteries,  and  sanitary  homes  and  parks  for  the 

people,  and  play-grounds  for  the  children,  and  baths  and 

wash-houses,  and  good  schools.     No  !  it  is  everything  to 

have  a  true  and  sound  notion  of  what  we  want  or  ought 

to  have ;  to  have  a  right  ideal  of  a  human,  healthful, 

and  happy  city.     We  can  all  do  something,  even  the 

humblest  of  us,  to  get  a  decent,  habitable  roof  over  our 

heads  ;  to  see  that  our  children  have  water  and  milk  to 

drink   that  is   not   poisoning   them ;    we   can  all  take 

decent  precautions  not  to  spread  disease  by  neglect, 

folly,  and  ignorance.     And  we  can  all  together  make  a 

real  impression  on  those  who  have  the  wealth  and  the 

direction  of  society  upon  them,  if  we  make  them  feel 


440  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

that  you  are  no  longer  satisfied  with  rotting  old 
tenements  for  homes,  contaminated  water  to  drink,  and 
dismal,  joyless  miles  of  streets  to  live  in,  where  the  pure 
air  of  heaven  is  turned  into  a  pall  of  smoke.  We  can 
tell  those  who  have  the  wealth  and  the  power  that  the 
lives,  and  the  health,  and  the  comfort  of  the  great 
masses  are  the  very  first  of  all  their  duties  ;  that  the 
contests  of  Radicals  and  Tories  are  of  infinitely  small 
importance  compared  with  the  lives  of  the  people.  If 
it  be  not  true  that  Sanitas — Sanitas,  omnia  Sanitas — if 
health  and  comfort  be  not  the  greatest  of  all  things — 
they  are  the  most  urgent  of  all  things,  the  foundation 
of  all  things. 

.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  death-rate  of  London  is 
remarkably  low,  but  it  ought  to  be  lower.  The  very 
fact  that  London  has  so  nobly  distinguished  itself 
amongst  all  the  capitals  of  Europe  is  proof  that  it  can 
do  much  to  save  life.  It  has  a  vast  deal  more  to  do. 
One  of  our  greatest  authorities,  Sir  Spencer  Wells, 
speaking  in  the  face  of  Europe  as  representing  the 
sanitary  reformers  of  this  country,  gave  it  as  his 
deliberate  judgment  that  the  death-rate  of  our  great 
cities  might  be,  and  ought  to  be,  reduced  to  at  least 
12  per  thousand  per  annum — that  is,  a  reduction  of 
nearly  10  per  thousand,  not  far  off  half  the  deaths.  There 
have  been  some  weeks  of  recent  years,  when  London 
approached  within  measurable  distance  of  this  great 
ideal.  There  are  now  some  districts  in  the  west 
inhabited  by  the  rich  where  the  death-rate  is  at  times 
below  even  this  limit.  There  is  no  sanitary  authority 
which  denies  the  possibility  of  reaching  a  death-rate  of 
12  per  thousand.  It  would  mean  some  30,000  lives 
saved  each  year  in  London  alone. 

And    at   what    price  is  the  great  result  attainable  ? 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  441 

The  cost  of  an  African  war,  perhaps,  ten  years  of 
engineering  labour,  absolutely  wholesome  water  to 
drink,  and  plenty  of  it  to  wash  in  and  to  wash  with,  a 
rational  and  healthy  drainage  to  carry  off  poison  from 
our  homes  —  sewer-gas  and  other  abominations  of 
civilisation  in  the  stage  of  blunder  would  become  as 
much  things  of  the  past  as  the  leprosy.  We  should  all 
have  pure  milk,  clean  houses,  air  with  no  sulphur  fumes 
in  it,  open  spaces,  plenty  of  play-grounds,  mortuaries  on 
right  principles,  cemeteries  wholly  away  from  the  living, 
and  the  bestowal  of  the  dead  no  longer  a  danger  to  the 
living,  systematic  precautions  against  contagion,  hos- 
pitals reconstructed  on  scientific  methods.  A  little 
common  sanitary  knowledge  would  be  made  a  matter 
of  general  education.  There  would  be  no  exhausting 
hours  of  work,  no  starvation  wages,  no  overcrowded, 
ill-ventilated,  and  dangerous  factories,  less  drink,  less 
brutal  treatment  of  women  and  children,  more  civilisa- 
tion, more  real  charity,  more  true  religion.  This  is  the 
price  at  which  the  death-rate  may  be  reduced  nearly 
one-half,  and  upwards  of  30,000  lives  a  year  saved  which 
now  perish  by  our  folly,  our  neglect,  and  our  crime. 

London  has  already,  as  compared  with  the  Continent, 
an  exceptionally  low  death-rate  ;  lower  by  20,  30,  even 
50  per  cent,  than  some  other  capitals,  lower  than  almost 
any  large  town  in  Europe,  except  a  few  of  the  ports  in 
the  Baltic,  and  actually  one-half  of  the  death-rate  of 
some  Russian  and  many  Eastern  cities.  The  death-rate 
is  a  very  complicated  and  treacherous  field,  and  we 
know  that  London  is  the  centre  which  attracts  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  youths  and  girls  in  the  prime  of  life, 
who  come  here  and  are  employed  in  service  and  in 
factories,  unmarried  and  necessarily  in  average  health. 
That  undoubtedly  reduces  the  death-rate  ;  but  the  same 


442  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

cause  applies  more  or  less  in  all  great  towns  of  Europe 
or  America,  and  (except  that  London  absorbs  a  larger 
number  of  domestic  servants  than  either),  it  does  not 
affect  London  more  than  it  affects  Paris  and  New 
York. 

It  is  quite  true  that  merely  to  keep  sickly  children 
alive  for  a  life  of  feebleness  and  disease  is  by  no 
means  an  unmixed  boon  ;  but  it  will  take  a  good  deal  to 
convince  us  that  a  high  death-rate  is  a  sign  of  civilisa- 
tion. We  may  take  a  low  death-rate  as  the  basis  and 
beginning  of  a  thriving  community.  London  has  dis- 
tinguished itself  above  all  the  great  cities  of  Europe  by 
its  low  death-rate.  The  very  increase  of  population, 
which  in  some  aspects  is  so  alarming,  is  not  due  to  any 
exceptionally  high  birth-rate  in  London.  Indeed,  the 
birth-rate  is  far  below  the  standard  of  the  eastern  half 
of  Europe ;  nay,  it  is  below  that  of  most  cities  in 
Europe,  except  the  French  and  Italian  towns.  The 
increase  is  due  to  the  immense  interval  between  its 
moderate  birth-rate  and  its  very  low  death-rate.  Where- 
as the  deaths  exceed  the  births  in  Naples  and  in  St. 
Petersburg,  and  the  births  are  less  than  one  in  a  thousand 
in  excess  of  the  deaths  at  Madrid,  Buda-Pesth,  and 
Rome,  and  the  surplus  of  births  in  Paris  and  Lyons  is 
less  than  two  in  a  thousand,  in  London,  where  the 
birth-rate  is  below  that  of  the  majority  of  Continental 
cities,  the  surplus  of  births  over  deaths  is  thirteen  and  a 
half  per  thousand,  or,  say,  about  50,000  souls  a  year. 
As  compared  with  Naples  or  St.  Petersburg,  therefore, 
London  saves  some  50,000  human  lives  a  year ;  as 
compared  with  Madrid,  Pesth,  and  Rome,  it  saves,  say, 
45,000  lives ;  as  compared  with  Paris  and  Lyons,  it 
saves  40,000  lives.  If  it  can  do  this,  why  cannot  it  do 
more  ?  Our  sanitary  authorities  tell  us  that  it  can  do 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  443 

more :  that  30,000  lives  a  year  are  still  sacrificed  to  our 
ignorance,  our  folly,  and  our  crime. 

We  may  take  in  turn  a  few  of  the  ways  in  which  the 
lives  of  these  30,000  victims  a  year  may  be  saved  ;  and, 
with  their  lives,  the  infinite  sorrow,  suffering,  and  loss 
which  these  30,000  deaths  involve.  There  is  a  book 
with  a  most  happy  title,  the  instructive  record  of  a  most 
useful  life — I  mean  The  Health  of  Nations,  by  the  well- 
known  reformer  Sir  B.  W.  Richardson.  In  that  book 
Dr.  Richardson  has  collected  the  writings,  described  the 
schemes,  and  explained  the  work  of  his  friend,  Edwin 
Chadwick,  the  Nestor  of  sanitary  reform,  the  Jeremy 
Bentham  of  the  Victorian  epoch,  the  pioneer  and 
venerable  chief  of  all  health  reformers.  Edwin  Chad- 
wick,  himself  the  philosophical  executor  and  residuary 
legatee  of  old  Jeremy  Bentham  as  a  social  and  practical 
reformer,  in  extreme,  and  hale  old  age,  he  was  born  in 
the  last  century,  in  1800 — was  still  in  1887  hearty  and 
energetic  in  the  cause  to  which  he  has  devoted  sixty 
years  of  his  life — the  great  cause  of  the  Health  of 
Nations.  The  Health  of  Nations  is  quite  as  important 
as  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  If  the  Health  of  Nations 
does  not  need  the  philosophical  genius  of  Adam  Smith, 
or  the  analytic  genius  of  Jeremy  Bentham,  it  needs  a 
spirit  of  social  devotedness  quite  as  serious,  and  a 
practical  energy  in  the  apostle  quite  as  great.  As 
Burke  told  us  that  John  Howard  had  devoted  himself 
to  a  '  circumnavigation  of  charity,'  so  Edwin  Chadwick 
sixty  years  ago  began  a  '  circumnavigation  of  sanitation,' 
and  after  all  his  voyages  he  has  at  length  finally  put 
into  port. 

Of  all  problems,  the  most  important  is — water.  We 
are  drinking  water  that  at  times  is  contaminated  with 
sewage,  as  well  as  with  foul  surface  drainage,  and  that 


444  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

to  a  degree  which  under  possible  conditions  may  be- 
come deadly.  I  saw  not  long  ago  one  of  the  large 
affluents  of  the  Upper  Thames  poisoned  by  mineral 
refuse  to  a  degree  which  suddenly  killed  the  whole  of 
the  fish.  This  garbage — mineral  poison,  refuse,  and 
decaying  fish — we  in  London  had  to  drink.  It  is  true 
that  such  are  the  forces  of  nature  that  even  mineral 
poison  and  stinking  fish  does  not  kill  us  always — in 
moderate  doses.  Were  it  not  for  the  vis  medicatrix 
natura  in  the  matter  of  water,  air,  and  soil,  we  should 
all  be  dead  men  some  morning,  the  whole  four  millions 
of  us  together.  This  want  of  abundant  pure  water  is 
one  of  the  most  crying  wants  of  our  age.  There  are 
two  or  three  modes  in  which  London  can  be  supplied 
with  wholesome  water.  Whether  it  is  to  come  out  of 
the  chalk,  whether  it  is  to  be  collected  out  of  several  of 
the  southern  rivers  at  their  head  sources,  whether  it  is 
to  come  by  a  vast  aqueduct  from  Bala  Lake,  the  West 
Midland  hills,  or  from  Ullswater,  we  need  not  discuss. 
But  it  has  to  come — pure,  abundant,  constant.  Ulti- 
mately, I  believe,  there  will  be  a  main  aqueduct  down 
England  from  the  lakes  of  Westmorland,  sending  off 
branch  mains  to  the  greater  Northern  and  Midland 
towns,  and  pouring  into  London  a  river  like  the  Eamont 
at  Penrith — an  inexhaustible  source  of  pure  water,  just 
as  the  Claudian  or  the  Julian  Aqueducts  poured  their 
rivers  into  Rome — Rome,  the  immortal  type  of  all  that 
a  great  city  ought  to  have  in  the  way  of  water  supply. 

Let  us  away  with  all  the  nastiness  and  stupidities  of 
cisterns,  with  their  dirt,  poison,  discomfort,  and  cost ; 
away  with  the  ball-cock,  and  the  bursting  pipes,  and  all 
the  abominations  of  bungling  plumbers.  A  continuous 
water  supply  is  a  necessity  of  civilisation.  But  free 
water  is  as  much  a  necessity  of  civilisation  as  pure 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  445 

water,  or  continuous  water.  Water,  like  the  roadway, 
is  a  public  not  a  private  concern.  Neither  water,  air, 
nor  soil  are  manufactures  like  bread,  clothes,  and  gas. 
A  man  should  be  no  more  charged  personally  for  water 
by  a  commercial  company  than  he  should  be  charged 
a  toll  for  walking  over  London  Bridge,  or  taking  the 
air  in  Hyde  Park.  It  concerns  the  health  of  us  all 
that  no  family  should  be  stinted  in  their  water  supply, 
or  even  should  stint  themselves.  Roadways,  streets, 
bridges,  parks,  embankments,  the  free  use  of  air  and 
earth,  ought  to  be  secured  us  by  public  bodies,  under 
public  control,  making  no  private  profit,  and  having  no 
private  interest,  and  supported  by  common  rates  and 
taxes,  and  so  ought  the  free  use  of  water  to  be. 

Water  we  want  unstinted  and  under  absolute  public 
control  for  cooking,  cleaning,  and  washing  in  our  homes, 
for  cleansing  the  streets,  for  fire  defence,  for  wash- 
houses  and  public  baths,  for  adornment  and  recreation. 
And  on  every  one  of  these  grounds,  for  the  same  reason 
that  it  would  be  criminal  to  make  Hyde  Park  a  private 
company  and  let  them  charge  a  toll  at  the  gates — on 
all  these  grounds  we  require  Water  to  be  a  public  and 
not  a  private  interest,  a  common  advantage  of  a 
civilised  community,  and  not  a  commodity  for  share- 
holders to  speculate  with  and  to  sell  to  the  needy. 

Some  day,  I  trust,  we  shall  take  in  hand  our  rivers. 
We  have  already  done  much.  There  is  a  vast  deal 
more  to  do.  There  is  no  positive  reason  why  the 
Thames  as  it  flows  by  Westminster  Palace  should  not 
be  as  bright  as  when  it  reflects  Hampton  Court  on 
its  surface.  Factories,  works,  drainage,  refuse,  will  no 
longer,  in  secret  and  in  defiance  of  Parliament,  pollute 
its  stream  ;  the  southern  shores  will  be  embanked  like 
the  northern  ;  and  the  surface  drainage  of  this  metro- 


446  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

politan  area  and  its  whole  sewage  will  not  be  dis- 
charged pell-mell  into  a  tidal  river.  Some  day,  I 
believe,  our  two  or  three  millions  of  chimneys  will  no 
longer  pour  out  their  endless  pall  of  sulphur  and  soot. 
No  poisonous  gas  will  ever  enter  a  house  ;  for 
mechanical  contrivances  will  suck  down  the  products 
of  refuse,  instead  of,  as  they  now  do,  force  them  up 
into  our  homes. 

Nor  need  we  doubt  that  we  shall  one  day  face  the 
great  problem  of  health  which  death  presents  to  us,  in 
the  only  way  in  which  these  vast  modern  cities  can 
face  it — by  the  system  of  cremation.  All  who  have 
studied  the  facts  of  cremation  well  know  how  idle  are 
the  objections  on  the  score  of  propriety,  decency, 
solemnity,  or  the  concealment  of  crime.  They  know 
that  cremation  alone  affords  the  absolutely  safe  means 
of  bestowing  the  80,000  corpses  which  each  year  casts 
upon  our  sorrowing  hands.  The  ordinary  objections 
which  we  hear  are  but  melancholy  remnants  of  childish 
superstition.  There  are  objections  of  weight  which  I 
recognise  to  the  full ;  all  that  repugnance  which  springs 
out  of  the  hallowed  memory  of  the  buried  remains,  the 
local  sanctity  of  the  grave,  and  all  its  religious  and 
beautiful  associations.  No  one  can  respect  these  more 
than  I  do  ;  no  one  can  more  heartily  wish  to  preserve 
them.  But  those  who  feel  them  have  never  made  real 
to  their  minds  all  the  noble  associations  and  resources 
of  urn  burial — one  of  the  most  ancient,  beautiful,  and 
religious  of  all  modes  of  disposing  of  the  dead.  Crema- 
tion, in  its  present  form,  absolutely  pure,  effective, 
simple,  and  dignified  as  it  is,  destroys  the  remotest 
germs  of  deleterious  power  in  the  loved  remains ;  but 
it  does  not  annihilate  the  remains  altogether.  The 
solid  ashes  remain  far  more  pure  and  perfectly  than  in 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  447 

any  ancient  cremation  the  residuum  of  the  body, 
purified  seven  times  in  the  fire.  These  ashes  are 
appropriately  closed  in  an  urn.  They  can  be  buried,  if 
it  so  be  thought  best,  in  the  grave,  and  then  the  grave 
will  contain  the  body,  not  indeed  putrescent  in  horrible 
decay,  but  in  a  little  harmless  dust  in  a  case.  Crema- 
tion need  not  at  all  affect  the  practice  of  interment. 
The  grave  may  remain  undisturbed  ;  the  sacred  earth 
may  be  there  as  now  ;  flowers,  as  now,  will  rise  up  and 
bloom  over  the  ashes.  We  the  survivors  may  come 
and  stand  beside  the  tombstone,  and  adorn  it  with  a 
wreath  or  a  posy  as  now,  and  think  over  her  and  him 
who  rest  below.  But  though  they  rest  there  as  truly 
as  ever,  it  will  not  be  in  a  long  and  lingering  process 
of  abomination,  ghastly  and  dangerous  to  the  living 
and  dishonouring  to  the  dead.  The  great  and  holy 
work  of  Nature,  purifying  the  poor  insensible  remains 
which  she  had  taken  into  her  own  bosom,  will  be  done, 
not  in  a  lingering  and  loathsome  fashion,  but  with  a 
swift  and  beautiful  blaze  of  a  modern  scientific  gas 
furnace  which  in  a  few  hours  will  consume  the  limbs 
that  have  rested  for  ever,  and  will  transmute  them  into 
a  permanent  and  innocent  dust. 

But  it  is  in  the  name  not  only  of  the  health  of  the 
living  that  we  need  cremation  in  great  cities,  but  as 
the  sole  means  left  to  us  of  preserving  the  sanctity  of 
the  tomb,  the  religio  loci  of  the  dead.  Although  in- 
terment may  long  hold  its  ground  in  open  country,  and 
even  partially  combined  with  cremation  in  cities,  as  in 
early  Christian  ages  interment  and  cremation  existed 
together,  urn  burial  of  the  ashes  left  by  cremation 
affords  us  surpassing  facilities  for  art,  poetry,  sentiment, 
and  devotion  in  our  ultimate  disposal  of  the  dead. 
The  sacred  dust  in  its  urn  can  be  fitly  placed  in  all 


448  THE  CITY  IN   HISTORY 

sorts  of  places  ;  for  it  is  absolutely  innocuous,  very 
moderate  in  bulk,  and  easily  adapted  to  all  kinds  of 
uses.  It  may  be  placed  in  a  covering  tomb,  or  as  the 
centre  of  a  monumental  construction.  It  may  be 
placed  in  a  church,  in  a  cloister,  in  a  cemetery,  in  a 
private  chapel,  even  in  a  private  room.  Hence  the 
receptacles  of  sacred  ashes  need  not  be — as  now  they 
must  be  or  ought  to  be — at  a  wearisome  distance  from 
the  vast  city  and  the  home  of  the  survivors.  We  can 
again  have  our  dead  beside  us,  as  they  did  in  Roman 
times  and  in  mediaeval  times  ;  but  now  without  risk  or 
inconvenience.  The  ashes  of  the  greater  dead  might 
rest  even  in  small  consecrated  chapels  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  city,  in  our  public  places,  or  even  in  our 
parks  and  churches.  But  for  the  general  dead  there  is 
that  beautiful  institution  the  cloister,  or  Campo  Santo. 
Those  who  know  the  lovely  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa,  or 
at  Bologna,  or  at  Genoa,  even  under  a  strict  system  of 
interment,  and  will  imagine  what  such  a  Campo  Santo 
or  cloister  could  be  made  when  combined  with  the 
Roman  system  of  the  Columbaria,  or  cells  for  the 
funeral  urns,  can  see  what  a  vast  range  is  opened  to  the 
preservation  of  the  remains  in  ways  full  of  beauty, 
piety,  and  solemnity.  The  cloisters  where  our  dead 
lie  need  not  be  at  any  distance  from  our  midst — they 
will  be  most  glorious  additions  to  our  city  monuments. 
The  old,  clammy,  ghastly,  unsightly,  useless  city 
churchyard  will  regain  its  uses  and  its  beauty  and  lose 
all  its  dangers.  The  new,  noisy,  untidy,  and  far-away 
cemeteries  will  also  be  at  an  end.  Beautiful  cloisters 
round  the  old  graveyards  of  our  parish  churches  will  be 
filled  with  chapels,  oratories,  monuments,  Columbaria, 
and  devices  of  every  kind  where  the  pure  ashes  of  our 
dead  will  rest  each  in  its  own  urn,  and  with  its  own 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  449 

record,  to  which  \ve  can  come  when  we  please  to  gaze, 
and  to  recall  in  memory  with  resignation,  love,  and 
outpouring  of  heart.  Such  seems  to  be  for  great  cities 
the  burial  of  the  future. 

Nor  can  we  doubt  that  our  whole  system  of  city 
dwelling  must  be  reformed.  Our  method  in  England 
of  separate  houses  for  each  family  has  great  and  precious 
advantages  ;  and  those  who  know  its  blessings  will  be 
sore  put  to  sacrifice  it.  But  sacrifice  it  we  must  at  last 
in  our  great  cities.  As  it  is,  it  is  in  London  for  the 
most  part  the  privilege  of  the  rich  and  the  comfortable. 
The  enormous  mass  of  our  London  workers  live,  as  they 
are  forced  to  live,  in  lodgings  or  tenements.  The  whole 
of  the  old,  poisonous,  crumbling  houses  of  older  London 
are  doomed.  And  we  must  boldly  face  the  necessity  of 
rebuilding  London  some  day  for  the  masses  in  blocks. 
It  is  the  plan  universal  on  the  Continent.  The  enormous 
waste  of  space,  the  indefinite  increase  of  toil,  involved 
in  our  present  London  system,  is  alone  conclusive  as 
to  our  practice.  If  London  were  constructed  on  the 
tenement  plan  of  Paris  or  New  York,  London  would 
save  a  third  or  a  half  of  its  unwieldy  area.  Again,  it  is 
impossible  to  secure  adequate  air,  sanitary  construc- 
tion, sanitary  appliances,  cleanliness,  convenience,  and 
freedom,  unless  the  homes  of  the  workers  be  ultimately 
constructed  on  the  collective  system.  Water,  lighting, 
washing,  drains,  cleansing,  provision  for  sickness,  acci- 
dent, death,  and  the  like,  and,  above  all,  really  scientific 
construction  can  only  be  obtained,  at  low  rents,  on  the 
collective  or  tenement  system.  We  need  not  reduce 
them  to  the  cheerless,  huge,  monotonous  barracks  which 
are  now  too  often  called  '  model  dwellings.'  But  we 
can  conceive  in  the  future  the  working  homes  of  our 
great  cities  consisting  of  detached  blocks  of  not  less 

2  F 


450  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

than  five  or  six  stories,  each  housing  not  less  than 
twenty  or  thirty  families,  with  common  appliances  for 
cooking,  washing,  bathing,  exercising,  playing,  and 
reading,  which  would  supplement,  not  supersede,  the 
appliances  of  each  apartment.  And  each  such  block 
should  contain  in  itself  some  sort  of  receptacle,  some 
kind  of  sick-house  or  infirmary,  some  spare  rooms  for 
the  treatment  of  malignant  diseases,  and  for  the  due 
disposal  of  the  dead. 

We  need  not  here  discuss  the  government  of  London 
or  the  municipality  for   London.     That  is  a  political 
and  parliamentary  question,   and   we  all    must  desire 
a   central,   real   government   for   London,  on   the  sole 
condition  that  it  be  a  good  government.     But  for  the 
material  resources  of  London  we  need  local  dispersion, 
decentralisation,  and  local  organisation.     We  can  have 
a  government  a  long  way  off  from  us  ;  but  we  cannot 
have    museums,    libraries,   baths,   parks,   play-grounds, 
schools,  hospitals,  and  cemeteries  a  long  way  off  from  us 
and  our  homes.     Or  if  we  do,  they  are  of  little  use  to 
us.     Materially — though  not  governmentally — London 
needs     to     be     treated    departmentally,    locally,    and 
separately.     We  may  see  the  signs  of  that  movement 
on  every  side.     There  are  the  People's  Palace,  and  the 
new  libraries,  the  new  town  halls,  the  new  schools,  the 
parks,  museums,  the  Toynbee  Halls,  which  are  springing 
up  everywhere.      The   great   parliamentary  reform  of 
1885  which  grouped  London  into  sixty  divisions  is  a 
step    of    immense    importance.       The    parliamentary 
borough    is    about    large   enough   for   local    purposes. 
Every  parliamentary  borough  wants  its  own  organisa- 
tion for  its  museums,  libraries,  baths,  parks,  and  play- 
grounds, and  all  the  rest.     The  children's  school  must 
be  within  an  easy  walk.      So  must  the  men's  reading- 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  451 

room,  or  lecture-hall,  or  library.  The  women  must  be 
able  to  find  a  good  wash-house  at  the  end  of  the  street ; 
a  man  after  his  Sunday  dinner  must  be  able  to  take  his 
family  to  get  fresh  air  and  rational  recreation  without 
walking  more  than  a  mile  for  it.  The  children  and 
young  people  must  be  able  to  get  to  their  playgrounds, 
or  their  gymnasia,  or  their  concert,  or  dance,  walk  or 
talk,  without  being  tired  by  the  walk  before  they  get 
there.  For  there  is  one  thing  certain,  which  is  that  all 
the  telegraphs,  and  railways,  and  all  the  inventions  of 
modern  science  have  not  made  human  legs  and  feet 
able  to  go  quicker  or  go  farther  than  they  used  ;  that 
even  tramcars  and  underground  railways  are  only  a 
very  partial  substitute  for  legs  ;  and  that  until  science 
invents  seven-leagued  boots,  perfectly  available  for 
every  man,  woman,  and  child,  and  provided  gratis  at 
every  house  door,  the  appliances  of  civilised  life  must 
be  within  an  easy  walk  of  people's  homes. 

To  some  such  city,  then,  we  may  look  in  the  future. 
A  city  where  our  noble  river  will  flow  so  bright  and 
clear  that  our  young  people  can  swim  in  it  with  pleasure 
as  they  do  at  Paris.  A  city  where  we  shall  again  see 
the  blessed  sun  in  a  clear  blue  sky,  and  watch  the 
steeples  and  the  towers  as  they  do  at  Paris  shining 
aloft  in  the  bright  air.  A  city  which  at  night  will  be 
radiant  with  the  electric  light,  in  the  midst  of  which 
fountains,  as  at  Rome,  will  pour  forth  fresh  rivers  from 
the  hills — a  river  in  our  case  of  perennial  water  that  has 
fallen  from  Snowdon  or  Helvellyn.  A  city  where  all 
noxious  refuse  is  absolutely  unknown,  where  no  deadly 
exhalations  are  pumped  into  our  homes,  where  a  child 
can  drink  a  glass  of  water  from  the  tap  or  the  street 
fountain  and  sleep  in  its  garret  at  home  with  entire 
impunity,  a  city  where  typhus  and  typhoid,  smallpox, 


452  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

zymotic  disease,  shall  be  as  rare  as  the  plague,  and  as 
much  a  matter  of  history  as  the  leprosy.  A  city  where 
the  dead  shall  no  longer  be  a  terror  to  the  living,  no 
longer  despatched  unremembered  to  some  distant  burial- 
place,  but  kept  in  our  midst — at  once  a  source  of 
reverent  memory  and  of  beautiful  adornment.  A  city 
where  preventable  disease  is  a  crime  to  be  charged 
against  some  one,  and  an  opprobrium  to  the  district  in 
which  it  breaks  out,  like  a  murder  or  a  burglary.  A 
city  where  no  child  shall  go  untaught  because  it  has  no 
suitable  school  at  hand.  A  city  where  no  man  should 
go  without  books,  pictures,  music,  society,  art,  exercise, 
or  religion,  because  there  were  no  free  libraries  at  hand, 
or  no  museums  open  when  he  was  at  leisure  after  work, 
no  galleries  to  look  at  on  a  Sunday,  no  concerts,  no 
parks,  no  playgrounds  within  reach,  no  free  seats  in  a 
church  which  he  cared  to  enter. 

II.  London  in  1894 

The  Local  Government  Act  of  1888  has  undoubtedly 
added  a  new  impulse  to  that  transformation  of  London, 
which  historic  causes  of  European  range  had  made 
necessary  for  more  than  a  generation,  and  which  had 
been  stimulated  anew  by  the  Parliamentary  Redistribu- 
tion Act  of  1885.  With  the  political  aspect  of  these 
Acts,  and  with  the  policy  of  the  London  County  Council, 
we  have  no  occasion  to  concern  ourselves  in  these  pages. 
But  the  effect  of  this  great  municipal  reform  on  the 
evolution  of  London  as  a  historic  city  is  too  momentous 
to  be  passed  in  silence. 

In  the  first  place,  London,  which  a  generation  ago 
was  an  inorganic  mass  of  Parishes  variously  controlled 
by  obscure  Vestries,  has  been  showing  in  the  last  decade 


THE   TRANSFORMATION    OF   LONDON  453 

unexpected  tendencies  towards  organic  unity  and  to 
evolve  an  internal  organisation.  The  organic  unity  has 
been  adjourned,  in  spite  of  heroic  efforts  on  many  sides, 
by  the  natural  rivalries  between  the  new  Council  and 
the  historic  Corporation,  by  differences  between  the  two 
Houses  of  Parliament,  and  by  the  protracted  crisis  in 
the  political  world.  Of  all  these  causes  (temporary  as 
true  patriots  hope)  nothing  will  be  said  here.  In  the 
meantime  the  spontaneous  organisation  of  London  into 
an  aggregate  of  cities  has  been  one  of  the  most  striking 
of  modern  movements.  It  has  been  greatly  stimulated 
by  the  two  political  reforms  which  created  650,000  voters 
for  London,  and  divided  it  into  numerous  boroughs. 
These  have  become  real  civic  organisms  of  a  manage- 
able size ;  and  they  have  naturally  developed  a  kind  of 
local  patriotism,  such  as  was  hardly  possible  to  grow  up 
in  the  vague  welter  of  an  unknown  and  unknowable 
'  Metropolis.' 

The  ultimate  destiny  of  this  huge  agglomeration  of 
houses  is  now  vested  in  the  hands  of  the  vast  masses  of 
the  working  population.  They  have  far  more  keen 
interests  in  the  city  than  their  wealthier  neighbours,  who 
look  on  London  as  a  centre  of  labour,  amusement,  or 
struggle  for  a  season  or  a  period,  whilst  they  often  '  get 
away '  from  it,  and  hope  at  last  to  retire  to  a  calmer 
place.  In  the  meantime  the  richer  classes  seldom  know 
London  as  a  whole,  or  care  for  it  as  their  home,  or 
regard  it  as  having  any  claim  on  them  as  their  city. 
Far  different  is  this  to  the  working  men :  to  whom 
London  is  their  home,  their  '  county,'  their  permanent 
abode.  It  is  a  city  which  they  quit  only  for  a  few 
hours  or  days,  which  many  of  them  are  forced  to 
traverse  from  end  to  end  under  the  exigencies  of  their 
trade,  where  they  expect  to  pass  their  old  age  and  to 


454  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

lay  their  bones.  The  healthiness,  convenience,  pleasant- 
ness of  London,  are  all  in  all  to  them  and  to  their 
household.  Mismanagement  is  to  them,  and  to  those 
dear  to  them,  disease,  discomfort,  death.  There  is 
every  reason  to  look  forward  to  the  complete  trans- 
formation of  London  into  an  organic  city,  with  a  people 
proud  of  its  grandeur  and  beauty,  so  soon  as  the  new 
institutions  have  been  fully  matured.  We  have  seen 
a  local  municipal  patriotism  break  forth  with  extraor- 
dinary rapidity  and  energy  in  several  of  the  new 
boroughs,  such  as  Battersea,  Chelsea,  and  St  George's- 
in-the-East.  And  this  interest  in  city  life  will  grow 
and  deepen,  as  it  has  done  in  Midland  and  Northern 
towns,  until  ultimately  we  may  look  to  see  London  as 
a  whole  develop  the  spirit  of  pride  and  attachment 
which  the  great  cities  of  the  Middle  Ages  bred  in  their 
citizens  of  old. 

The  big  collective  problems  which  deal  with  Water, 
with  Fire,  with  the  Sick,  with  the  Dead,  with  central 
Communications,  and  with  the  Housing  of  the  poor 
population — can  only  be  undertaken  by  a  supreme 
central  municipality,  but  not  by  vestries,  or  boroughs. 
And  unhappily  in  London  no  supreme  municipality  has 
as  yet  a  free  hand,  or  can  count  on  the  aid  of  the 
Legislature.  But  in  spite  of  division  of  authority  and 
legislative  obstacles,  not  a  little  has  been  done  and 
much  more  has  been  attempted  and  prepared  in  every 
one  of  these  departments.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  both 
the  ancient  Corporation  and  the  County  Council  have 
striven  to  attain  these  ends  ;  and  in  not  a  few  cases 
with  combined  energies  and  resources.  And  although 
in  the  case  of  the  Water  Supply  no  final  solution  has 
been  reached,  an  immense  amount  of  scientific  study 
has  been  directed  to  the  problem  ;  and  a  great  improve- 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF  LONDON  455 

ment  both  in  quantity  and  quality  has  been  obtained. 
At  the  same  time  determined  efforts  and  a  large  ex- 
penditure have  visibly  improved  the  condition  of  our 
great  river  ;  and  fill  us  with  hope  that  living  men  may 
yet  come  to  see  a  pure  and  healthy  Thames. 

The  great  problem  of  how  to  bring  London  up  to 
the  level  of  its  position  in  the  world  and  to  make  it  a 
really  noble  and  commodious  city  has  been  continually 
attacked  :  as  yet  with  incomplete  results  and  a  better 
understanding  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  it.  It  is 
mainly  a  financial  and  political  question.  The  great- 
est and  richest  city  in  the  world  is  also  the  city  which 
now  seems  to  practise  the  most  rigid  economy  in  its 
own  improvement.  With  the  greatest  river  of  any 
capital  in  Europe,  with  boundless  energy,  wealth,  and 
opportunities,  London  is  put  to  shame  by  Paris,  Berlin, 
Vienna,  Rome,  and  New  York.  London,  it  is  true,  has 
no  mind  to  follow  the  monstrous  extravagance  which 
has  imposed  crushing  burdens  on  so  many  Italian  cities. 
But  it  will  not  even  follow  the  honourable  example 
of  Manchester,  Liverpool,  Glasgow,  Birmingham,  and 
Nottingham.  The  London  Council  is  housed  in  hired 
makeshifts,  and  London  communications  are  indefinitely 
adjourned.  This,  however,  is  entirely  a  financial  and 
political  question.  With  the  existing  system  of  finance 
and  in  the  equilibrium  of  political  parties,  it  has  been 
the  fixed  resolve  of  the  Council  to  throw  no  fresh 
burdens  on  the  occupying  ratepayer. 

Yet  in  spite  of  legislative  obstacles,  within  five 
years  the  number  of  the  public  Parks,  Open  Spaces, 
and  Playgrounds,  has  been  more  than  doubled,  and 
their  public  usefulness  immeasurably  increased.  The 
material,  the  stations,  and  the  staff  devoted  to  ex- 
tinguish fires  have  been  very  largely  augmented  ;  and 


456  THE  CITY  IN    HISTORY 

further  increase  is  contemplated ;  so  that  the  army 
required  for  fighting  urban  conflagrations  may  ere  long 
be  brought  up  to  the  level  of  modern  civilisation. 
Great  efforts  are  also  being  made  to  arrest  infectious 
disease,  to  suppress  nuisances,  to  prevent  contamination 
of  food,  to  condemn  insanitary  dwellings,  to  secure  just 
weights  and  measures,  and  to  rehouse  the  people  in  com- 
fortable and  healthy  homes.  When  we  consider  how 
much  has  been  done  within  the  last  few  years  to 
increase  the  healthiness,  the  convenience,  the  pleasant- 
ness of  London  for  the  masses  who  inhabit  it  in  per- 
manence, there  is  ground  to  trust  that  the  reorganisation 
of  the  great  city  has  begun.  Even  in  the  costly  and 
difficult  problem  of  trans-fluvial  communications  the 
work  has  been  taken  in  hand.  London  presents  in  this 
matter  more  arduous  problems  than  any  European 
capital.  But  the  Tower  Bridge,  the  Blackwall  Tunnel, 
the  steam-ferry,  and  the  rebuilding  of  old  bridges  that  is 
projected,  will  do  something  to  meet  this  urgent  want 

The  side  wherein  London  still  most  visibly  halts 
is  in  the  street  improvements  and  new  communications 
so  loudly  demanded  for  years.  This,  however,  is  an 
operation  enormously  costly  and  beset  with  complex 
parliamentary  difficulties.  Until  these  are  solved,  and 
the  conflict  on  the  form  and  incidence  of  municipal 
taxation  is  decided,  we  cannot  expect  much  to  be  done. 
But  the  question  has  already  been  stirred  in  all  its 
forms  ;  and  many  schemes  have  been  put  before  the 
public  and  parliament.  London  has  many  noble 
features,  in  its  great  river,  its  fine  parks,  its  position 
astride  of  the  Thames,  and  its  northern  heights  gradu- 
ally sloping  down  to  the  embankment.  But  it  has  vast 
arrears  of  work  to  make  up  before  it  can  be  counted  a 
commodious  or  splendid  city.  There  are  large  parts 


THE   TRANSFORMATION   OF   LONDON  457 

of  London  where  crooked  lanes  and  decayed  houses 
remain  almost  as  they  were  built  after  the  fire  of  1666. 
The  urgent  problem  now  is  to  secure  better  thorough- 
fares from  north  to  south.  Below  Vauxhall  Bridge 
not  a  single  carriage  bridge  has  been  added  for  two 
generations,  whilst  the  population  has  increased  three- 
fold. The  trans-fluvial  communication,  including  the 
enlargement  and  rebuilding  of  existing  bridges,  and 
the  approaches  to  these  both  north  and  south,  needs  at 
this  hour  to  be  at  least  doubled  in  number  and  carrying 
power. 

Amongst  the  larger  problems  still  awaiting  solution 
for  the  material  improvement  of  London  are  : — 

1.  The  completion  of  the  embankment  of  the  river 

on  both  sides  between  Battersea  and  Blackfriars, 
with  due  provision  for  continual  easy  access  to 
the  Embankment,  and  with  docks  at  suitable 
stations  within  it. 

2.  Improved   access   to    the    existing   bridges,   north 

and  south. 

3.  New  carriage  bridges,  at  least  at  Lambeth  and  at 

Charing  Cross. 

4.  A     direct     avenue    connecting    the    three    great 

northern  railway  termini  with  the  Waterloo 
terminus  and  with  Charing  Cross. 

5.  Connections   of    Holborn    with   the   Strand,   the 

British  Museum  with  Somerset  House,  Victoria 
Terminus  with  South  Kensington  and  Lambeth, 
Ludgate  Hill  with  Cheapside. 

6.  The   reconstruction    of  Covent   Garden    and    its 

approaches  and  connection  of  it  with  the  Courts 
of  Justice  and  with  the  north. 

7.  The  reconstruction  of  the  Main  Drainage  system, 

including  the  discharge  of  sewage  to  the  sea. 


458  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

8.  The  re-housing  of  the  people  displaced  from  de- 
cayed insanitary  areas. 

The  minor  improvements  in  every  outlying  parish 
and  suburb  are  far  too  many  and  complex  to  be  treated 
here. 

These  undertakings,  together  with  a  suitable  building 
for  the  government  of  London  to  work  in,  may  occupy 
the  energy  and  resources  of  a  whole  generation.  It  is 
impossible  to  calculate  the  enormous  loss  in  money,  in 
comfort,  in  health,  in  labour,  wasted  by  millions  of 
people  struggling  to  reach  each  other  through  crowded, 
narrow,  and  circuitous  streets.  Nor  can  we  easily 
estimate  the  evils  of  pinching  the  government  of  a 
great  capital  by  niggardly  supply  of  the  material  ap- 
pliances of  its  task. 

The  first  thing  is  to  make  our  city  a  healthful  home 
for  the  people.  The  next  is  to  furnish  it  abundantly 
with  all  the  resources  of  civic  life — one  of  the  primary 
of  which  is  adequate  means  of  transit.  The  third  is  to 
invest  it  with  dignity,  impressiveness,  and  beauty.  The 
people  who  now  have  the  destinies  of  their  own  city 
in  their  own  hands  will  not  long  remain  satisfied  with 
squalor,  ugliness,  and  discomfort.  The  civic  patriotism 
of  London  has  lain  dormant  for  centuries,  but  in  our 
generation  it  is  reviving.  And  we  may  hope  that  ere 
the  twentieth  century  is  far  advanced,  it  may  create  a 
new  London  worthy  of  its  past  history  and  its  vast 
opportunities. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

THE   SACREDNESS   OF   ANCIENT   BUILDINGS1 

A  TORSO  from  the  hand  of  Pheidias,  a  portrait  by  Titian, 
a  Mass  by  Palestrina  or  Bach,  a  lyrical  poem  of  Milton, 
an  abbey  church  of  the  thirteenth  century — are  all  works 
of  art ;  matchless,  priceless,  sacred  :  such  as  man  on  this 
earth  will  never  replace,  nor  ever  again  see.  They  are, 
each  and  all,  that  which  are  a  great  life,  or  a  memorable 
deed :  once  spent,  they  can  never  be  repeated  in  the  same 
way  again,  and  yet,  once  lived,  or  once  achieved,  they 
make  the  world  to  be  for  ever  after  a  better  place.  And 
these  inimitable  works  are  not  only  amongst  the  heir- 
looms of  mankind  ;  but  they  are  records  of  the  life  of 
our  fathers,  which  concentrate  in  a  single  page,  canvas, 
block  of  stone,  hymn,  or  it  may  be,  portal,  as  much 
history  as  would  fill  a  library  of  dull  written  annals. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  beauty,  of  knowledge,  of 
reverence,  these  works  of  art  are,  as  the  historian  of 
Athens  said,  '  an  everlasting  possession.' 

Yet  how  strangely  different  is  the  care  with  which  we 
treat  the  statue,  the  picture,  the  music,  the  poem,  from 
the  treatment  we  give  the  church — the  church,  one 
would  think  the  most  sacred  of  all.  It  is  not  so  with 
us.  We  preserve  the  torso,  or  the  portrait — we  restore 
the  church.  We  give  it  a  new  inside  and  a  fresh  out- 

1  An  address  given  at  the  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Society  for  the  Preser- 
vation of  Ancient  Buildings,  1887.  Contemporary  Review,  vol.  lii. 


460  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

side.  We  deck  it  out  in  a  brand-new  suit  to  cover  its 
nakedness.  A  committee  of  subscribers  choose  the 
style,  the  century,  into  which  it  shall  be  transposed  ; 
they  wrangle  in  meetings,  in  rasping  letters,  and 
corrosive  pamphlets,  as  to  carrying  on  an  early-pointed 
arcade  in  the  lady-chapel,  or  as  to  introducing  a  gridiron 
mass  of  perpendicular  tracery  in  the  west  window.  The 
chapter,  the  subscribers,  the  amateur  archaeologists,  each 
have  their  pet  style,  sub-style,  and  epoch,  their  fancy 
architect,  or  infallible  authority  in  stone,  antiquities,  and 
taste.  Between  them  the  church  is  gutted,  scraped,  re- 
faced,  translated  into  one  of  those  brand-new,  intensely 
mediaeval,  machine-made,  and  engine -turned  fabrics, 
which  the  pupils  of  the  great  man  of  the  day  turn  out 
by  the  score.  This  is  how  we  treat  the  church. 

Imagine  the  tenth  part  of  this  outrage  applied  to 
statue,  picture,  hymn,  or  poem.  Suppose  the  Trustees 
of  the  British  Museum  were  to  call  in  Mr.  Gilbert  and 
commission  him  to  restore  the  Parthenon  torsos,  to 
bring  the  fragments  from  the  Mausoleum  up  to  the 
style  of  the  Periclean  era.  Suppose  the  Ministry  of 
Fine  Arts  in  France  restored  the  arms  of  the  Melian 
Aphrodite  in  the  Louvre,  or  the  Pope  restored  the  legs, 
arms,  and  head  to  the  torso  beloved  by  Buonarroti. 
Europe,  in  either  case,  would  ring  with  indignation  and 
horror.  Time  was,  no  doubt,  when  these  things  were 
done,  and  done  by  clever  sculptors  in  better  ages  of  art 
than  ours.  But  we  may  be  fairly  sure  that  it  will  never 
be  done  again. 

Pictures,  we  know,  have  been  restored  ;  and,  perhaps, 
on  the  sly  are  restored  still.  Years  ago  I  saw  a 
miscreant  painting  over  the  '  Peter  Martyr '  of  Titian 
in  the  Church  of  SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo ;  and  it  would 
have  been  a  condign  punishment  if  the  fire  which  con- 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF   ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      461 

sumed  it  had  caught  him  red-handed  in  the  act.  They 
have  daubed  Leonardo's  '  Cenacolo '  till  there  is  nothing 
but  a  shadow  left.  But  though  a  sacrilegious  brush 
may  now  and  then  be  raised  against  an  ancient  Master 
(just  as  murder,  rape,  and  arson  are  not  yet  absolutely 
put  down),  even  our  great-great-grandfathers,  who  made 
the  grand  tour  and  '  collected '  in  the  days  of  Horace 
Walpole,  never  added  powder  and  a  full  wig  to  one  of 
Titian's  Doges,  or  asked  Zoffany  to  finish  a  chalk  study 
by  Michael  Angelo. 

I  do  not  know  that  there  ever  was  a  time  when  people 
restored  a  poem  or  a  piece  of  music.  Certainly  Colley 
Gibber  restored  some  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  introducing 
bon  ton  into  '  Hamlet '  and  '  Richard  III.'  And  Michael 
Costa  would  interpolate  brass  into  Handel's  '  Messiah.' 
But  in  any  world  that  claims  a  title  to  art,  taste  or 
culture,  to  falsify  a  note  or  a  word,  either  in  music  or  in 
poem,  is  rank  forgery  and  profanity — felony  without 
benefit  of  clergy.  Manuscripts  are  searched  with 
microscopes  and  collated  by  photographs  to  secure 
the  ipsissima  verba  of  the  author.  And  the  editor  who 
'  improved '  a  single  line  of  '  Lycidas '  would  be 
drummed  out  of  literature  to  the  '  Rogue's  March.' 

In  our  day,  happily,  poem,  music,  picture,  and  statue 
are  preserved  with  a  loving  and  religious  care.  Picture 
and  statue  are  cased  in  glass  and  air-tight  chambers ; 
for  we  would  not  beteem  the  winds  of  heaven  visit  their 
face  too  roughly.  The  rude  public  are  kept  at  arms' - 
length  ;  and  in  some  countries  are  not  suffered  so  much 
as  to  look  at  the  books,  engravings,  and  paintings  for 
which  they  have  paid.  Worship  of  an  old  poet  is 
carried  to  the  point  of  printing  his  compositions  in  the 
authentic  but  unintelligible  cacography  he  used.  And 
as  to  old  music,  reverence  is  carried  so  far  that  too 


462  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

often  we  do  not  perform  it  at  all,  I  suppose  for  fear 
that  a  passage  here  and  there  may  not  be  interpreted 
aright. 

Go  to  Sir  Charles  Newton  or  Mr.  Murray,  and  tell 
him  that  the  'Theseus'  and  'Ilissus'  in  the  Elgin 
Room  (I  use  the  old  conventional  names)  are  sadly 
dilapidated  on  their  surface,  and  that  you  could  restore 
their  skins  to  the  original  polish  ;  or  propose  to  repaint 
the  Panathenaic  frieze  in  the  undoubted  colours  used 
by  Pheidias.  Tell  Sir  Frederick  Burton  or  Mr.  Poynter 
that  the  lights  in  the  '  Lazarus '  and  the  '  Bacchus  and 
Ariadne '  have  plainly  gone  down  ;  and  that  you  will 
carry  out  the  ideas  of  Sebastian  and  Titian  by  heighten- 
ing them  a  little.  Tell  him  that  'Alexander  and  the 
Family  of  Darius '  is  full  of  anachronisms,  and  that  you 
will  re-robe  the  figures  with  strict  attention  to  chronology 
and  archaeology.  I  should  like  to  see  the  looks  of  these 
public  servants  when  you  proposed  it,  as  I  should  like 
to  have  seen  Michael  Angelo  watching  the  '  Breeches- 
maker'  who  clothed  the  naked  saints  in  his  Sistine 
'  Last  Judgment.' 

Statue,  picture,  book,  music,  are  preserved  intact  with 
reverential  awe.  Not  but  what  some  of  them  have 
suffered  too  by  time,  get  utterly  dilapidated,  are  in  risk 
of  perishing,  have  become  mere  fragments,  or  offer 
tempting  ground  for  ambitious  genius.  The 'Aphrodite' 
of  Melos  is  still  a  riddle :  the  torso  of  the  Vatican  is  a 
very  sphinx  in  stone,  a  mass  of  marble  ever  propound- 
ing enigmas,  ever  rejecting  solutions.  It  is  a  block  as 
it  stands  :  head,  arms,  legs,  and  action  would  make  it  a 
statue.  The  '  Cenacolo'  of  Milan  has  long  been  a  mere 
ghost  of  a  fresco,  faint  as  the  last  gleam  of  a  rainbow. 
There  are  still  whole  choruses  of  yEschylus  to  restore ; 
and  Shakespeare  is  certainly  not  responsible  for  every 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF   ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      463 

scene  in  his  so-called  works.  Literature  and  Art  are 
full  of  works,  either  injured  by  time,  or  left  incomplete 
by  their  authors,  or  such  as  modern  research  could 
easily  purge  of  their  anachronisms,  inconsistencies,  and 
general  defects. 

It  is  in  one  art  only  that  modern  research  dares  this 
outrage.  Great  works  of  architecture  are  not  exactly 
on  the  same  footing  with  great  works  of  sculpture,  of 
painting,  of  music,  of  poetry.  They  differ  from  all ;  and 
I  will  presently  consider  these  differences.  But  great 
works  of  architecture  are,  like  all  great  works  of  art, 
matchless,  priceless,  and  sacred.  They  are  absolutely 
beyond  renewal.  It  is  easier  to  copy  Titian's  '  Entomb- 
ment '  than  the  portal  of  Chartres  or  Notre  Dame — as 
they  once  stood,  and  stand  no  more.  Each  great  work 
of  architecture  is  also  unique :  completely  distinct  from 
every  work  that  ever  was  or  ever  will  be.  Giotto's 
Campanile,  the  Duke's  Palace  at  Venice,  stand  alone 
— must  we  say  stood  alone? — like  Hamlet  or  Lear, 
'  remote,  sublime,  and  inaccessible.'  A  man  who 
wanted  to  'continue'  Giotto's  Campanile,  or  add  a 
new  story,  and  enlarge  the  Palace  at  Venice,  is  the 
kind  of  man  who  would  '  continue '  the  Iliad  or 
dramatise  the  Divine  Comedy  for  the  Lyceum  stage. 

In  all  ways  the  great  building  is  worthy  of  a  deeper 
reverence,  is  consecrated  with  a  profounder  halo  of 
social  and  historical  mystery  than  any  picture  or  any 
statue  can  be.  Of  the  five  great  arts,  that  of  building  is 
the  only  one  which  adds  to  its  charm  of  beauty  the 
solemnity  of  the  genius  loci.  It  is  the  one  art  which  is 
immovably  fixed  to  place ;  the  rest  are  migratory  or 
independent  of  space.  Poetry  and  music,  not  being 
arts  of  form,  are  not  confined  to  any  spot.  Statues  and 
paintings,  though  they  can  only  be  seen  in  some  spot, 


464  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

may  be  carried  round  the  world  and  set  up  in  museums 
and  galleries.  But  the  building  belongs  for  ever  to  the 
place  where  it  is  set  up.  It  is  incorporated  with  the 
surroundings,  the  climate,  the  people,  the  site,  where  it 
first  rose.  No  museum  can  ever  hold  it ;  it  is  not  to  be 
catalogued,  mounted,  framed,  or  classed  like  a  coin  or  a 
mummy  in  a  glass  case.  It  stands  for  ever  facing  the 
same  eternal  hills,  the  same  ever-flowing  river,  rising 
into  the  same  azure  or  lowering  sky  into  which  it  rose 
at  first  in  joy  or  pride.  It  may  be  as  old  as  the  Pyramids, 
or  as  recent  as  Queen  Anne.  But  in  any  case  it  has 
watched  generation  after  generation  come  and  go ;  for 
thousands  of  years  men  have  passed  under  that  portal  ; 
for  centuries  the  bell  has  tolled  from  that  tower.  The 
steps  of  this  colonnade  have  been  worn  by  the  feet  of 
Pericles,  Sophocles,  Plato,  and  Socrates ;  under  this  arch 
passed  the  Antonines,  Trajan,  and  Charlemagne  ;  Saint 
Louis  used  to  pray  standing  on  this  very  floor,  six 
centuries  and  a  half  ago  ;  this  chapter-house  was  for 
two  centuries  the  cradle  of  the  Mother  of  Parliaments 
throughout  the  world. 

No  other  art  whatever,  with  the  partial  exception  of 
large  frescoes,1  neither  music  nor  poetry,  has  this  religio 
loci,  this  consecration  of  some  spot  by  hallowed  associa- 
tion, which  is  bound  up  with  the  very  life  of  every  great 
building.  In  the  whole  range  of  art  there  is  nothing  so 
human,  so  social,  so  intense,  as  this  spirit  which  has 
made  the  practice  of  pilgrimage  an  eternal  instinct  of 
humanity.  To  pass  from  the  roar  of  Paris  or  London 
to  sit  beside  the  Venus  or  the  Theseus  is  delight.  We 
all  feel  rest  and  awe  before  a  Madonna  of  Raphael,  a 

1  Such  frescoes  as  those  of  the  Arena  Chapel  at  Padua,  or  the  Sistine 
Chapel  at  Rome,  belong  to  architecture  as  much  as  to  painting,  almost  as 
much  as  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  is  a  part  of  the  building. 


THE  SACREDNESS  OF  ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      465 

portrait  of  Titian,  or  listening  to  Mozart's  '  Requiem,'  or 
to  '  Paradise  Lost.'  But  to  me,  a  son  of  earth,  no  art 
comes  home,  seeming  at  once  so  intense  and  so  infinite, 
as  when  I  wander  round  the  old  piazzas  at  Florence  and 
Venice,  or  pace  about  the  Forum  or  the  Abbey.  There 
art,  memory,  veneration,  patriotism,  the  pathos,  the 
endurance,  the  majesty  of  humanity,  seem  to  me  to 
blend  in  one  overpowering  sensation.  Who  can  say 
where  Art  ends  and  Veneration  begins  ? 

Thus  every  ancient  building,  whether  it  be  a  successful 
work  of  art  or  not,  is  sacred  by  its  associations,  and  is  a 
standing  record  in  itself.  But  an  ancient  building  is  a 
far  more  definite  product  of  the  society  out  of  which  it 
grew  and  the  civilisation  which  created  it,  than  any 
statue  or  any  painting,  almost  more  than  any  music,  or 
any  poem.  It  is  usually  a  far  less  personal  and  in- 
dividual act  of  imagination  than  statue,  painting,  poem, 
or  music.  It  is  a  collective  and  developing  work,  the 
creation  of  a  series  of  minds,  the  inspiration  of  a  given 
epoch,  and  of  a  particular  people.  No  great  statue,  or 
painting,  or  piece  of  music,  or  poem,  was  ever  produced 
by  a  group  of  artists.  Most  great  buildings  were.  The 
Parthenon  is  in  what  is  called  the  Doric  not  the  Ionic 
style ;  and  we  think  of  Pheidias,  the  sculptor,  rather 
than  Ictinus,  the  architect,  as  the  genius  who  created  it. 
Hardly  a  single  great  church,  till  the  age  of  Wren,  can 
be  positively  assigned  to  one  sole  author,  as  we  assign 
the  '  Agamemnon '  positively  to  yEschylus,  or  the 
Sistine  Madonna  to  the  stessa  mano  of  Raphael.  A 
few,  a  very  few,  buildings  bear  the  stamp  of  one  unique 
genius,  such  as  the  Campanile  at  Florence,  the  Sainte 
Chapelle,  and  our  St.  Paul's.  Statues,  paintings,  poems, 
and  music,  are  each  the  complete  conception  of  one 
mind,  the  execution  of  one  hand.  As  a  rule,  buildings 

2  G 


466  THE  CITY   IN   HISTORY 

are  the  accumulating  conception  of  several  minds,  the 
execution  of  successive  generations. 

It  is  no  doubt  this  character  in  buildings  which  has 
made  us  slow  to  treat  them  with  the  reverence  and  love 
that  we  show  so  readily  to  works  in  the  other  arts. 
Other  works  are  the  creations  of  some  master  whose 
name,  story,  and  individuality  we  know.  A  Madonna 
is  by  Raphael  or  Bellini ;  a  poem  is  by  Dante  or 
Milton  ;  a  Mass  is  by  Bach  or  Mozart ;  a  statue  is  by 
Pheidias  or  Michael  Angelo.  And  we  cannot  conceive 
any  other  hand  or  brain  so  much  as  touching  the  work. 
But  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Wisdom  at  Constantinople 
is  the  work  of  the  Byzantine  School  ;  the  Cathedral  of 
Chartres  is  the  work  of  builders  in  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
the  Abbey,  the  Tower  of  London,  the  Louvre,  the 
Duomo  and  the  Palazzo  Vecchio  at  Florence,  repre- 
sent whole  centuries  of  successive  evolution  in  art  and 
manners.  Statues  and  paintings  are  the  creations  of 
single  Masters.  Buildings  are  the  collective  growth  of 
Ages. 

But  for  this  very  reason,  what  buildings  lose  in 
personal  interest  they  gain  in  human  interest,  in  social 
significance,  in  historical  value.  The  multiplicity  of 
parts  in  a  great  edifice,  the  vast  range  of  its  power  over 
an  infinite  series  of  human  souls,  the  sacrifices,  the 
endurance,  the  concentration  of  efforts  by  which  it  was 
built  up,  and  the  countless  generations  of  men  who 
have  contributed  to  its  beauty  or  have  been  touched  by 
its  majesty,  give  it  a  collective  human  glory,  which  no 
statue  or  picture  ever  had — a  glory  which  is  exceeded 
only  by  the  great  poems  of  the  world.  A  Madonna 
was  struck  off  in  a  few  months,  and  since  it  was  put  on 
canvas  has  been  seen  by  some  tens  of  thousands,  of 
whom  some  thousand  came  from  it  better  men.  A 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF   ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      467 

statue,  a  song,  a  lyric,  appeals  to  a  definite  number  in  a 
definite  way,  but  hardly  to  a  whole  people  on  every 
side  of  their  souls.  But  take  a  great  building — a  great 
group  of  buildings  at  its  highest  point  —  say  the 
Acropolis  at  Athens,  the  Forum  at  old  Rome,  the  Papal 
edifices  at  modern  Rome,  the  Piazzas  at  Florence, 
Venice,  and  Verona,  Notre  Dame  as  it  stood  unrestored, 
our  own  great  group  at  Westminster — in  vast  range  of 
impression  and  invention  they  are  certainly  surpassed 
by  the  Bible,  the  Iliad,  the  Divine  Comedy,  or  the 
works  of  Shakespeare,  but  by  no  other  creative  work 
of  man  ever  produced.  The  civilisation  of  whole 
races  is  petrified  into  them.  For  centuries,  tens  of 
thousands  of  men  have  toiled,  thought,  imagined,  and 
poured  their  souls  into  the  work.  It  would  be  an 
education  in  art  to  have  known  by  heart  that  glorious 
facade  of  Notre  Dame,  as  it  once  was,  when  every  leaf 
in  its  foliage,  every  fold  in  the  drapery,  every  smile  in 
every  saint's  face  was  an  individual  conception  of  some 
graceful  spirit  and  some  deft  hand — to  have  known 
every  legend  which  blazed  in  ruby,  azure,  and  emerald 
in  the  countless  lights  of  nave,  choir,  aisle,  and  transept, 
the  thousands  of  statues  which  peopled  it  within  and 
without,  the  carved  stalls  and  screens,  the  iron,  brass, 
and  silver  and  gold  work,  the  pictures,  the  frescoes,  the 
tombs,  the  altars,  the  marbles,  the  bronzes,  the  em- 
broideries, the  ivories,  the  mosaics.  A  great  national 
building  is  the  product  of  a  nation,  and  is  the  school  of 
a  nation.  And  for  this  reason  it  should  stand  in  our 
reverence  and  love  next  to  the  great  poems  of  a 
nation.  Next  to  the  Iliad  and  the  Trilogy  crimes  the 
Parthenon.  Next  to  the  Divine  Comedy  the  Duomo  of 
Florence  and  its  adjuncts.  Next  to  Shakespeare  and 
Milton  the  Abbey. 


468  THE  CITY   IN   HISTORY 

There  is  thus  a  peculiar  quality  in  the  great  historic 
building  which  marks  it  off  from  all  other  works  of  art. 
It  is  in  a  special  sense  a  living  work.  It  is  not  so  much 
a  work  as  a  being.  It  has  an  organic  life,  organic 
growth  ;  it  has  a  history,  an  evolution  of  its  own.  The 
Pantheon  at  Rome  has  gone  on  living  and  growing  for 
nearly  nineteen  centuries,  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo  for 
nearly  seventeen,  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Wisdom  for 
thirteen,  and  our  own  Tower  for  eight  centuries  ;  and 
all  of  them  are  still  living  buildings,  and  not  at  all 
ruins  or  'monuments.'  A  building  may  undergo  amazing 
permutations,  like  Hadrian's  Mausoleum,  the  baths  of 
Diocletian,  or  the  Church  of  Justinian,  and  yet  retain 
its  identity  and  its  vital  energy.  A  building  is  indeed 
rather  an  institution  than  a  work ;  and,  like  all  in- 
stitutions, it  has  its  own  evolution,  corresponding  with 
the  social  evolution  on  which  it  depends,  and  of  which 
it  is  the  symbol.  Our  Tower,  Abbey,  Palace  of  West- 
minster, and  Windsor  Castle  are  much  more  like  our 
Monarchy,  Parliament,  and  Judicial  system  than  they 
are  like  a  Madonna  by  Raphael,  or  a  statue  by  Pheidias, 
They  are  not  objects  to  be  looked  at  in  museums. 
They  are  organic  lives,  social  institutions,  historic  forces. 

Now  I  hold  that  all  national,  historic,  monumental 
buildings  whatever,  however  small  or  humble,  partake 
of  this  character,  and  ought  to  have  the  same  veneration 
and  sacredness  bestowed  on  them.  Every  building  that 
has  a  definite  public  history,  and  has  been  dedicated  to 
public  use,  be  it  church,  tower,  bridge,  gateway,  hall,  is 
a  national  institution,  is  a  public  possession,  and  has 
become  "sacrosanct,  as  the  Romans  said.  In  the  law  of 
Rome,  the  ground  in  which  one  who  had  the  right 
buried  a  dead  body  became,  ipso  facto,  religious ;  it 
ceased  to  be  private  property,  it  could  not  be  bought  or 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF   ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      469 

sold,  transferred  or  used.  It  was  for  ever  dedicated  to 
the  dead,  and  reserved  from  all  current  usage.  So  a 
building,  which  our  dead  forefathers  have  dedicated  to 
the  service  of  generations,  should  be  sacrosanct  to  the 
memory  of  the  Past. 

Its  size,  its  beauty,  its  antiquity,  its  celebrity,  are 
matters  of  degree  not  of  principle.  Essentially  it  is  a 
national  possession,  an  irreparable  monument,  a  sacred 
record,  as  the  great  Charter  and  '  Domesday '  are. 
These  records  have  become  so  pitiably  few,  their 
possible  value  is  so  incalculably  great,  their  unique, 
inimitable,  priceless  nature  as  relics  is  so  obvious,  that 
wantonly  to  destroy  one  of  them  ought  to  be  treated 
as  a  public  crime,  like  smashing  the  Portland  Vase, 
or  defacing  the  Charter  and  '  Domesday.'  It  is  pre- 
posterous that  an  incumbent  and  his  churchwardens,  a 
dean  and  chapter,  a  mayor  and  aldermen,  a  warden  and 
benchers,  a  highway  board,  or  a  borough  corporation, 
should  be  free  to  deface  a  national  relic,  and  falsify  a 
national  record.  At  the  very  least,  a  parish  church 
should  be  as  well  protected  by  law  as  a  parish  register 
is  against  wanton  defacement  and  falsification  of  its 
contents.  In  principle  the  idea  is  admitted  by  the 
need  for  a  '  faculty.'  But  a  '  faculty '  is  become  a 
melancholy  form  ;  and  no  '  faculty '  is  needed  by  the 
trustees  who  sell  an  ancient  edifice  to  a  builder's 
speculation,  by  the  highway  board  which  carts  away  a 
tower  or  a  gate,  or  '  restores '  and  '  improves '  a  bridge. 

Our  glorious  Milton  said,  in  a  passage  as  immortal 
as  his  poems,  '  as  good  almost  kill  a  Man  as  kill  a  good 
Book.'  We  may  add  :  '  As  good  almost  kill  a  good 
Book  as  kill  an  ancient  Building.'  The  one  is  as  ir- 
recoverable as  the  other ;  it  may  teach  us  as  much  ;  it 
should  affect  us  even  more.  See  how  the  words  of  that 


470  THE   CITY    IN    HISTORY 

most  Biblical  of  passages,  which  Isaiah  himself  might 
have  uttered,  apply  to  the  building  as  much  as  to  the 
book.  Is  not  a  great  historic  abbey  '  an  immortality 
rather  than  a  life '  ?  Is  not  the  cathedral,  too,  '  the 
precious  life-blood  of  a  master-spirit,  embalmed  and 
treasured  up  on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life"?  Are 
not  these  'restorers'  and  'improvers'  of  our  public 
monuments  the  men  who  '  spill  that  seasoned  life  of 
man  preserved  and  stored  up  in '  the  buildings  which 
our  forefathers  raised,  in  which  their  lives  were  recorded, 
and  their  best  work  was  bestowed  ? 

Every  work  of  art  has  in  it  '  the  precious  life-blood 
of  a  master-spirit ' ;  but  a  work  of  great  architecture 
and  historic  importance  has  in  it  the  precious  life-blood 
of  many  a  master-spirit.  And  the  humblest  ancient 
monument,  though  it  be  a  petty  parish  church  or  a 
market  cross,  has  this  '  seasoned  life  of  man  preserved 
in  it.'  Like  the  picture,  the  statue,  the  poem,  in  every 
work  of  art,  the  precious  life-blood  of  the  master-spirit 
which  informs  it  should  make  it  sacred  from  sacrilegious 
hands.  But  the  building  has  also  that  which  picture, 
statue,  and  poem,  have  not — the  religio  loci.  '  The 
place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground,'  may  be 
said  of  every  historic  monument.  Nay  more.  The 
ancient  building  is  marked  by  a  filiation  of  master- 
spirits. Like  the  Saxon  '  Chronicle,'  or  the  '  Annals  of 
Waverley,'  it  is  not  a  fixed  but  a  current  record.  It  is 
a  continuous  and  moving  monument — at  once  contem- 
porary like  annals,  and  yet  organic  like  a  history.  The 
great  Charter,  '  Domesday,'  the  Bayeux  tapestry,  are 
records  of  given  moments  in  the  national  life.  But  in 
the  Abbey  and  its  precincts  may  be  seen  the  works 
of  English  hands,  continuously  for  a  thousand  years, 
generation  after  generation,  typical  contemporary  work. 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF   ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      471 

Now,  the  humblest  old  parish  church  partakes  of  this 
quality  of  continuous  typical  work  for  centuries. 

It  is  monstrous  that  any  man,  any  body  of  men,  even 
any  single  generation,  should  claim  the  right  in  the 
name  of  property,  or  their  office,  or  their  present  con- 
venience, to  destroy  in  a  moment  the  continuous  work 
of  centuries,  to  desecrate  the  best  work  of  their  fore- 
fathers, and  to  rob  their  own  descendants  of  their 
common  birthright.  Who  gave  this  rare  and  inimitable 
value  to  the  ancient  building?  Not  they,  nor  even 
the  first  founders  of  it.  Generation  after  generation 
stamped  their  mark  on  it,  recorded  their  thoughts  in 
it,  poured  into  it  their  precious  life-blood.  It  is  an 
aggregate  product  of  their  race,  a  social  possession  of 
all.  Whence  came  the  religio  loci  which  casts  a  halo 
over  it  ?  From  no  single  author,  from  no  set  of  builders: 
from  a  long  succession  of  ancestral  generations  to  whom 
it  has  grown  a  sacred  and  national  symbol.  That 
precious  value  which  time,  society,  the  nation,  have 
given  it,  is  now  at  the  mercy  of  any  man,  or  any  board. 

There  was  a  noble  doctrine  in  the  old  Roman  Law, 
which  may  be  stated  in  the  words  of  Gaius :  Sanctae 
quoque  res,  velut  muri  et  portae,  quodammodo  divini 
iuris  sunt.  Quod  autem  divini  iuris  est,  id  nullius  in 
bonis  est.  '  Things  like  city  walls,  city  gates,  are  sacro- 
sanct ;  and,  in  a  sense,  under  divine  sanction.  But 
whatever  is  under  the  divine  sanction  cannot  be  the 
subject  of  property.'  That  is  to  say,  historic  buildings 
which  form  part  of  the  national  records  are  consecrated 
by  the  past  and  dedicated  to  the  future,  and  are  taken 
out  of  the  arbitrary  disposal  of  the  present.  This 
principle  goes  deeper  than  the  making  them  public 
property.  They  are  not  property  at  all — not  to  be 
used,  consumed,  and  adapted  at  the  passing  will  of  the 


472  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

day.  They  are  not  the  chattels  of  the  public.  They 
are  not  public  property ;  they  are  consecrated  to  the 
nation.  Each  generation  is  too  apt  to  ask,  like  a 
famous  peer,  '  May  I  not  do  what  I  please  with  mine, 
own  ? '  No  !  national  possessions  are  much  more  than 
public  property.  They  are  not  '  the  own  '  of  a  passing 
body.  They  are  the  inheritance  which  the  past  is 
bequeathing  to  the  future,  and  of  which  we  are  but 
trustees.  We  have  no  absolute  rights  over  them  at  all  ; 
we  have  only  the  duty  to  preserve  them. 

So  great  is  the  difference  between  our  treatment  of  old 
pictures,  statues,  poems,  and  songs,  and  our  treatment 
of  old  buildings,  that  there  must  be  some  ground  for 
our  practice.  Certainly  there  is.  Architecture  is  an 
art  essentially  different  from  other  arts ;  and  buildings 
are  not  simple  works  of  art.  A  building  intended  to 
shelter  and  contain  men,  is,  like  clothing,  food,  and 
firing,  a  necessity  of  man's  material  existence,  and  not, 
as  picture,  statue,  poem,  and  song  are,  means  of  giving 
grace  and  joy  to  man's  life.  Hence  every  building  is 
first  and  principally  a  necessity  and  a  material  utility, 
and  a  work  of  beauty  afterwards  (if  it  ever  become  so 
at  all).  The  most  restless  generation  does  not  '  restore ' 
and  '  convert '  either  picture,  statue,  poem,  or  song,  as 
if  it  were  an  old  gown  or  a  piece  of  carpet,  simply 
because  they  are  not  conveniences  but  enjoyments.  A 
generation  which  finds  an  old  building  inconvenient,  is 
cruelly  tempted  to  '  convert,'  '  adapt,'  extend,  or  alter  it. 
Again,  the  building  not  only  occupies  a  surface  of 
ground  enormously  greater  than  picture,  statue,  or  book, 
but  it  occupies  immovably  for  ever  one  definite  spot 
on  the  planet ;  and  in  the  perpetual  changes  of  social 
life  that  may  easily  become  an  intolerable  burden  on  the 
living.  As  the  building  occupies  unalterably  a  given  spot 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF   ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      473 

which  is  sometimes  a  primary  necessity  for  active  life, 
the  alternative  not  seldom  presents  itself  of  adaptation 
or  destruction.  Thirdly  :  whilst  picture,  statue,  or  book 
can  be  preserved  almost  indefinitely  by  moderate  care, 
the  building  requires  incessant  work,  sometimes  partial 
renewal  of  its  substance,  at  times  elaborate  constructive 
repair  to  prevent  it  from  actually  tumbling  down. 

There  are  thus  a  set  of  grounds,  some  on  one  side 
some  on  the  other,  which  mark  off  the  building  from 
all  other  works  of  art.  There  are  three  main  grounds, 
which  tempt  the  living — compel  the  living — to  deal 
with  it  from  time  to  time. 

First,  it  is  primarily  a  material  utility,  and  only 
secondarily  a  work  of  art. 

Next,  it  occupies  a  very  large  and  unalterable  spot. 

Lastly,  it  requires  constant  labour  to  uphold  it 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  three  main  grounds 
which  make  the  ancient  building  more  sacred  than  any 
other  work  of  man's  art. 

First,  it  alone  has  the  true  religio  loci. 

Secondly,  it  is  a  national  creation,  a  social  work  of 
art,  in  the  supreme  sense. 

Thirdly,  it  is  a  national  record,  in  a  way  that  no  other 
work  of  art  is,  because  it  is  almost  always  both  a 
collective  and  a  continuous  record. 

Now  the  action  and  reaction  of  these  two  competing 
sets  of  impulses  undoubtedly  makes  the  protection  of 
our  ancient  buildings  a  very  complex  and  very  difficult 
problem.  Both  sets  are  very  powerful,  both  act  in 
varying  degrees,  and  the  final  compromise  between  the 
rival  sets  of  claims  is  necessarily  the  work  of  much 
anxious  discrimination.  I  venture  to  maintain  that  the 
complication  and  antagonism  is  such  that  no  hard-and- 
fast  doctrine  can  be  laid  down.  Each  case  must  stand 


474  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

on  its  merits.  Each  decision  must  be  the  laborious 
reconcilement  of  conflicting  interests.  Our  cause  has 
suffered  from  over-arbitrary  dogmas  and  some  affecta- 
tion of  contempt  for  the  plain  necessities  of  material 
existence.  Every  one  outside  the  Tuileries  laughed  at 
Edmond  About,  when  he  told  the  Romans  of  to-day 
that  the  only  thing  left  for  them  was  '  to  contemplate 
their  ruins.'  I  wish  myself  that  they  had  contemplated 
their  ruins  a  little  longer,  or  had  allowed  us  to  contem- 
plate them,  instead  of  seeking  to  turn  Rome  into  a 
third-rate  Paris.  But  we  shall  be  laughed  at  if  we  ever 
venture  to  tell  the  nineteenth  century  that  it  must  con- 
template its  ruins. 

The  trust  imposed  on  the  century  is  not  to  con- 
template its  ruins,  but  to  protect  its  ancient  buildings. 
Now  that  will  be  done  if  the  century  can  learn  to  feel 
the  true  sacredness  of  ancient  buildings,  if  it  will  admit 
that  the  building  stands  on  the  same  footing  with  picture, 
statue,  and  poem,  that  it  is  unique,  inimitable,  irreplace- 
able ;  and,  above  all,  has  its  own  consecration  of  place, 
continuity,  and  record.  Admit  this  first,  and  then  we 
will  consider  the  claims  of  the  present,  their  convenience, 
and  their  means.  But  the  burden  of  proof  ought  always 
to  be  pressed  imperiously  against  those  whose  claim  is 
to  destroy,  to  convert,  or  to  extend.  When  every  other 
means  fail,  when  irresistible  necessity  is  proved,  it  may 
be  a  sad  duty  to  remove  an  ancient  building,  to  add  to 
it,  or  to  incorporate  it.  But  this  can  never  justify  what 
we  now  call  '  restoring,'  a  process  which  makes  it  as 
much  like  the  original  as  Madame  Tussaud's  figures  are 
like  the  statesman  or  general  they  represent.  It  can 
never  justify  re-decoration  —  cutting  out  ancient  art- 
work and  replacing  it  by  new  work  or  machine  work.  It 
can  never  justify  archaeological  exercises — I  mean  the 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF  ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      475 

patching  on  to  old  buildings  new  pieces  of  our  own 
invention,  which  we  deliberately  present  as  fabrications 
of  the  antique.  These  things  are  mere  Wardour  Street 
spurious  bric-a-brac,  no  more  like  ancient  buildings  than 
a  schoolboy's  iambics  are  like  ^Eschylus.  How  often  do 
committees,  dean  and  chapter,  public  offices,  and  even 
Parliament  itself,  treat  our  great  national  possessions  as 
if  they  were  mere  copy  books,  on  the  face  of  which  our 
modern  architects  were  free  to  practise  the  art  of  com- 
posing imitations  of  the  ancients.  Such  buildings 
become  much  like  a  Palimpsest  manuscript ;  whereon, 
over  a  lost  tragedy  of  Sophocles,  some  wretched  monk 
has  scribbled  his  barbarous  prose.  How  often  is  the 
priceless  original  for  ever  lost  beneath  the  later  stuff! 

In  these  remarks  I  have  strictly  confined  myself  to 
general  principles :  first,  because  I  do  not  pretend  to 
any  special  or  technical  knowledge  which  would  entitle 
me  to  criticise  particular  works,  but  mainly  because  I 
believe  our  true  part  to  be  the  maintenance  of  general 
principles.  If  we  fall  into  discussions  of  detail  we  may 
lose  hold  of  our  main  strength.  We  have  to  raise  the 
discussion  into  a  higher  atmosphere  than  that  of  archi- 
tectural anachronism.  We  cannot  pitch  our  tone  too 
high.  It  is  not  architectural  anachronism  which  we  have 
*to  check :  it  is  the  safety  of  our  national  records,  our 
national  self-respect,  the  spirit  of  religious  reverence 
that  we  have  to  uphold.  We  have  to  do  battle  against 
forgery,  irreverence,  and  desecration.  Let  us  raise  a 
voice  against  the  idea  that  any  work  of  art  can  ever, 
under  any  circumstances,  be  really  '  restored  ' ;  against 
the  idea  that  any  ancient  art  work  can  usefully  be 
'  imitated/  against  the  idea  that  ancient  monuments  are 
a  corpus  vile  whereon  to  practise  antiquarian  exercises  ; 
against  the  habit  of  forging  spurious  monuments,  as  the 


476  THE   CITY   IN    HISTORY 

monks  in  the  Middle  Ages  forged  spurious  charters ; 
finally,  against  the  idea  that  the  convenience  of  to-day  is 
always  to  outweigh  the  sacredness  of  the  past. 

Strangely  enough,  the  foes  of  ancient  buildings  are  too 
often  those  of  their  own  household.  Amongst  the  worst 
sinners  of  all  are  the  public  departments,  corporations, 
and  the  clergy.  The  forgers,  the  destroyers,  the  muti- 
lators,  are  too  often  the  official  guardians  of  our  old 
monuments.  One  can  see  why.  They  are  the  people 
who  use  them,  to  whom  they  are  a  necessity  and  a  con- 
venience. Naturally  they  are  constantly  tempted  to 
give  them  greater  practical  usefulness,  to  convert  them 
to  modern  requirements,  and,  above  all,  to  make  them 
look  smart.  We,  of  the  public,  gaze  at  an  old  monu- 
ment, and  then  we  go  home.  We  laymen  enjoy  an  old 
thirteenth -century  church  just  as  it  is  ;  but  to  the 
official,  to  the  priest,  the  old  hall  or  the  old  church  is 
the  place  where  his  official  work  is  done.  And  a  dread- 
ful temptation  besets  them  both  to  make  the  seat  of 
official  work  adequate  for  its  office,  and  appear  to  be  up 
to  the  level  of  our  time.  A  natural  sentiment ;  but  one 
false  and  dangerous.  Let  us  resist  it  in  the  name  of 
the  nation,  of  the  past  and  of  the  future.  These  things 
are  sacred  by  what  they  have  seen  and  known,  by  what 
they  teach,  by  what  they  record.  The  true  solution  is 
this.  If  the  present  age  needs  new  public  offices,  bigger 
churches,  new  halls,  bridges,  gates,  let  it  build  new 
ones.  If  it  needs  to  exercise  itself  in  architectural 
Latin  verses,  let  it  do  it  with  new  bricks,  new  stones, 
and  on  a  site  of  its  own  choosing. 

I  am  very  far  from  thinking  that  this  needs  Acts  of 
Parliament ;  but  the  sacredness  of  ancient  buildings  can 
be  guaranteed  by  law.  Pictures,  statues,  poems,  are  now 
safe  from  modern  Vandals  by  the  force  of  public  opinion 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF   ANCIENT   BUILDINGS      477 

and  true  feeling  for  art  and  antiquity.  The  owner  of  a 
Raphael  or  a  Titian,  of  a  Greek  statue,  does  not  need 
to  be  restrained  by  an  Act  of  Parliament  or  an  injunc- 
tion in  Equity  against  the  temptation  to  paint  over  his 
picture,  or  to  add  new  limbs  to  his  marble.  We  never 
hear  the  owner  of  some  princely  gallery  say  to  his 
friends  :  '  You  remember  what  a  dingy  thing  my 
Veronese  used  to  be,  how  poor  in  colour  my  Madonna 
was,  and  what  a  stick  the  Venus  looked,  with  one  arm 
and  no  nose.  Well !  I  had  Rubemup,  R.A.,  down  from 
the  Academy,  and  you  see  the  Veronese  is  as  bright  as 
an  Etty ;  my  Raphael  might  go  into  a  new  altar  at  the 
Oratory,  and  the  Venus  is  fit  for  the  Exhibition  ! '  We 
never  hear  this  ;  but  we  do  hear  a  dean  or  a  rector  take 
a  party  over  the  '  restored '  cathedral  and  church,  and 
point  out  how  the  whole  of  the  stone-work  has  been 
refaced,  how  new  tracery  has  been  added  '  from  Scott's 
designs,'  and  how  the  Jacobean  wood-carving  has  been 
carted  away  to  Wardour  Street.  And  now  the  old 
church  looks  like  a  new  chapel-of-ease  at  a  fashionable 
seaside  place.  And  the  Bishop  comes  down  in  lawn  and 
blesses  the  restored  and  re-consecrated  building,  and  the 
rector  gives  a  garden  party,  and  the  county  paper  brags 
about  the  liberal  subscription  lists.  What  we  have  to 
do,  is  to  make  them  all  understand  that  the  whole  busi- 
ness is  profanation,  ignorance,  and  vulgarity. 

Ancient  buildings  certainly  cannot  be  treated  as 
'exhibits,'  to  be  cased  in  glass,  and  displayed  in  a 
museum.  All  their  powers,  their  vitality  and  solemnity 
would  disappear.  They  have  in  most  cases  to  be  kept 
fit  for  use  ;  and  in  some  rare  cases  they  may  have  to  be 
completed,  where  the  kind  of  work  they  need  is  within 
our  modern  resources.  As  to  Palladian  work  that  may 
possibly  be  attempted  ;  but  as  to  true  mediaeval  work  of 


478  THE  CITY   IN   HISTORY 

the  best  periods,  it  is  absolutely  impossible.  No  fine 
carving  of  this  age  can  be  remotely  reproduced  or  imi- 
tated by  us  now  in  feeling  and  manner.  The  current  of 
gradual  growth  for  the  best  mediaeval  work  has  been 
broken  for  centuries.  And  we  cannot  now  recover  the 
tradition.  The  archaic  naive  grace  of  a  thirteenth- 
century  relief,  the  delicate  spring  of  foliage  round  capital 
or  spandrel,  are  utterly  irrecoverable.  There  does  not 
exist  the  hand  or  the  eye  which  can  do  it.  To  cut  out 
old  art-work  wholesale,  and  insert  new  machine  carving, 
is  exactly  like  cutting  out  a  Madonna  in  an  altar-piece, 
or  inserting  a  new  head  on  to  a  Greek  torso.  What  we 
have  to  do  is  to  uphold  the  fabric  as  best  we  may,  and 
preserve  the  decoration  as  long  as  we  can. 

There  is  need  to  educate  the  public,  especially  the 
official  public,  and  above  all  the  clergy,  to  understand 
all  thatjs  meant  by  the  sacredness  of  ancient  buildings. 
The  business  is  not  so  much  to  discuss  solecisms  in 
style  and  blunders  in  chronology,  as  to  make  men  feel 
that  our  national  monuments  are  dedicated  by  the  past 
to  the  nation  for  ever,  and  that  each  generation  but 
holds  them  as  a  sacred  trust  for  the  future. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

PAL^OGRAPHIC   PURISM1 

IN  this  age  of  historical  research  and  archaic  realism, 
there  is  growing  up  a  custom  which,  trivial  and  plausible 
in  its  beginnings,  may  become  a  nuisance  and  a  scandal 
to  literature.  It  is  the  custom  of  re-writing  our  old 
familiar  proper  names  ;  of  re-naming  places  and  persons 
which  are  household  words  :  heirlooms  in  the  English 
language. 

At  first  sight  there  seems  something  to  be  said  for  the 
fashion  of  writing  historical  names  as  they  were  written 
or  spoken  by  contemporary  men.  To  the  thoughtless 
it  suggests  an  air  of  scholarship  and  superior  knowledge, 
gathered  at  first  hand  from  original  sources.  Regarded 
as  the  coat-armour  of  some  giant  of  historical  research, 
there  is  something  piquant  in  the  unfamiliar  writing  of 
familiar  names  ;  and  it  is  even  pleasant  to  hear  a  great 
scholar  talk  of  the  mighty  heroes  as  if  he  remembered 
them  when  a  boy,  and  had  often  seen  their  handwriting 
himself.  When  Mr.  Grote  chose  to  write  about  Kekrops, 
Terete,  l&leopatra,  and  Perikles,  we  were  gratified  by  the 
peculiarity ;  and  we  only  wondered  why  he  retained 
Cyrus,  Centaur,  Cyprus  and  Thucydides.  And  when 
Professor  Freeman  taught  us  to  speak  of  'Charles  the 
Great,'  and  the  Battle  of  Senlac,  we  all  felt  that  to  talk 
of  Hastings  would  be  behind  the  age. 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  Jan.  1886,  vol.  xix.  No  107. 


480  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

But,  in  these  days,  the  historical  schools  are  growing 
in  numbers  and  range.  There  are  no  longer  merely 
Attic  enthusiasts,  and  Somersaetan  champions,  but 
other  ages  aud  races  have  thrown  up  their  own 
historiographers  and  bards.  There  are  '  Middle- 
English '  as  well  as  '  Old  -English  '  votaries, — and 
Eliza-ists,  and  Jacob-ists,  and  Ann-ists.  Then  there 
are  the  French,  the  German,  the  Italian,  the  Norse 
schools,  to  say  nothing  of  ^Egyptologists,  Hebraists, 
Sanscritists,  Accadians,  Hittites,  Moabites,  and 
Cuneiform-ists.  It  becomes  a  very  serious  question, 
what  will  be  the  end  of  the  English  language  if  all 
of  these  are  to  have  their  way,  and  are  to  re-baptize 
the  most  familiar  heroes  of  our  youth  and  to  re-spell 
the  world-famous  names. 

Each  specialist  is  full  of  his  own  era  and  subject,  and 
is  quite  willing  to  leave  the  rest  of  the  historical  field 
to  the  popular  style.  But  there  is  a  higher  tribunal 
beyond  ;  and  those  who  care  for  history  as  a  whole, 
and  for  English  literature  in  the  sum,  wonder  how  far 
this  revival  in  orthography  is  to  be  carried.  Let  us 
remember  that,  both  in  space  and  in  time,  there  is  a 
vast  body  of  opinion  of  which  account  must  be  taken. 
There  is  the  long  succession  of  ages,  there  is  the 
cultivated  world  of  Europe  and  America,  in  both  of 
which  certain  names  have  become  traditional  and 
customary.  And  if  every  knot  of  students  is  to  re-name 
at  will  familiar  persons  and  historic  places,  historical 
tradition  and  the  custom  of  the  civilised  world  are 
wantonly  confused.  This  true  filiation  in  literary 
history  is  of  far  more  importance  than  any  alphabetic 
precision. 

About  forty  years  ago,  Mr.  Grote  began  the  practice 
of  re-setting  the  old  Greek  names  ;  but  his  spelling  has 


PAL^EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  481 

not  commended  itself  to  the  world.  There  seems  much 
to  be  said  for  Themistokles  and  Kleon  ;  but  when  we 
were  asked  to  write  Korkyra  and  Krete,  we  felt  that 
the  filiation  of  Corcyra  and  Crete  with  Latin  and  the 
modern  tongues  was  needlessly  disturbed.  Kirke, 
Kilikia,  Perdikkas,  Katana,  seemed  rather  harsh  and 
too  subversive.  And  if  Sophokles  and  Sokrates  are 
right,  why  sEschylus  and  ALneas,  in  lieu  of  Aischulos 
and  Aineias!  Besides,  on  what  ground  stop  short 
at  a  k,  leaving  the  vowels  to  a  Latin  corruption  ?  The 
modern  Greeks  call  the  author  of  the  Iliad — Omeros ; 
and  the  victor  of  Marathon — MeelteeaAthes ;  and  it  is 
highly  probable  that  this  is  far  nearer  the  true 
pronunciation  than  are  our  Homer  and  Miltiades. 
To  be  consistent,  we  shall  have  to  talk  of  Aias, 
Odusseus,  Purrhos,  Lukourgos,  Thoukudides,  Oidipous, 
Aischulos,  and  Kirke,  wantonly  interrupting  the  whole 
Greco-Roman  filiation.  And,  whilst  we  plunge  ortho- 
graphy into  a  hopeless  welter,  we  shall  stray  even 
farther  from  the  true  ancient  pronunciation.  In  the 
result,  English  literature  has  rejected  the  change  with 
an  instinctive  sense  that  it  would  involve  us  in  quick- 
sands ;  and  would  to  no  sufficient  purpose  break  the 
long  tradition  which  bound  Greece  with  Rome,  and 
both  with  European  literary  customs. 

Mr.  Carlyle  would  have  all  true  men  speak  of 
Friedrich  and  Otto  ;  of  the  Kurfiirst  of  Kb'ln  ;  of  Trier, 
Prag,  Regensburg,  and  Schlesien.  But  then  he  is  quite 
willing  to  speak  like  any  common  person  about 
MaJwmet  and  the  Koran,  of  Clovis  and  Lothar,  of  a 
Duke  of  Brunswick,  and  of  Charles  Atnadeus  of  Savoy  ; 
he  anglicises  Marseille,  Preussen,  Oesterreich,  and 
Sachsen  ;  nay,  he  actually  talks  about  '  Charlemagne ' 
at  '  Aix-la-Chapelle.'  Tradition  and  English  literature 

2  H 


482  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

are  in  fact  too  strong  for  him,  except  where  he  wishes 
to  be  particularly  affectionate  or  unusually  impressive. 
I  venture  to  think  that  Frederick  and  Cologne  are 
names  so  deeply  embedded  in  our  English  speech  that 
there  is  nothing  affectionate  or  impressive  in  the  effort 
to  uproot  them  by  foreign  words  which  the  mass  of 
Englishmen  cannot  pronounce.  It  is  ridiculous  to  write, 
'  The  Kurfiirst  of  Kb'ln!  It  should  be,  '  Der  Kurfiirst 
von  Koln.'  But,  then,  we  had  better  write  in  German 
at  once. 

Of  all  the  historical  schools,  that  of  the  Old  English 
has  been  the  most  revolutionary  in  its  methods,  and 
the  most  exacting  in  its  demands.  It  began  by  con- 
demning '  Charlemagne '  and  the  '  Anglo-Saxons ' ;  and 
now  to  use  either  of  these  familiar  old  names  is  to  be 
guilty  of  something  which  is  almost  a  vulgarism,  if  not  an 
impertinence.  We  have  all  learned  to  speak  of  Karl 
and  the  Old  English.  One  by  one,  the  familiar  names 
of  English  history,  the  names  that  recur  in  every 
family,  were  recast  into  something  grotesque  in  look 
and  often  very  hard  indeed  tp  pronounce.  Ecgberht, 
Cnut,  or  Knud,  the  Hwiccas,  ALlfthryth,  Hrofesceaster, 
and  Cantwara-byryg  had  rather  a  queer  look.  Chlota- 
char,  Chlodowig,  Hrotland,  were  not  pleasing.  But 
when  we  are  asked  to  give  up  Alfred,  Edward,  and 
Edgar,  and  to  speak  of  sElfred,  Eadweard,  and  Eadgar, 
we  began  to  reflect  and  to  hark  back. 

Alfred,  Edward,  and  Edgar  are  names  which  for  a 
thousand  years  have  filled  English  homes,  and  English 
poetry  and  prose.  To  rewrite  those  names  is  to  break 
the  tradition  of  history  and  literature  at  once.  It  is  no 
doubt  true  that  the  contemporaries  of  these  kings 
before  the  conquest  did,  when  writing  in  the  vernacular, 
spell  their  names  with  the  double  vowels  we  are  now 


PAL/EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  483 

invited  to  restore.  But  is  that  a  sufficient  reason  ?  We 
are  not  talking  their  dialect,  nor  do  we  use  their  spell- 
ing. We  write  in  modern  English,  not  in  old  English  ; 
the  places  they  knew,  the  titles  they  held,  the  words 
they  used,  have  to  be  modernised,  if  we  wish  to  be 
understood  ourselves.  We  cannot  preserve  exactly 
either  the  sounds  they  uttered,  or  the  phrases  they 
spoke,  or  the  names  of  places  and  offices  familiar  to 
them.  Why  then  need  we  be  curious  to  spell  their 
names  as  their  contemporaries  did,  when  we  have 
altered  all  else — pronunciation,  orthography,  titles,  and 
indeed  the  entire  outer  form  of  the  language?  The 
precision  for  which  we  vainly  strive  in  the  spelling 
of  names  is  after  all  a  makeshift,  very  imperfectly 
observed  by  any  one,  and  entirely  neglected  by 
others.  And  it  has  the  defect  of  ignoring  a  long 
and  suggestive  unity  in  history,  language,  and  common 
civilisation. 

It  may  be  true  that  the  contemporaries  of  '  Edward 
the  Elder,'  'Edward  the  Martyr,'  and  'Edward  the 
Confessor'  spelt  the  name  Eadward,  or  Eadweard, 
if  they  wrote  in  English  ;  though  they  did  not 
uniformly  do  so  when  they  wrote  it  in  Latin.  But 
did  the  '  Edwards '  of  Plantagenet  so  spell  their  name  ; 
or  '  Edward '  Tudor  ;  and  will  '  Edward  the  Seventh ' 
so  spell  his  name?  And  is  Alfred,  a  name  to  conjure 
with  wherever  the  English  speech  is  heard,  to  be 
severed  from  the  great  king  ?  '  Alfred '  is  a  familiar 
name  just  as  '  king '  is  a  familiar  title ;  and  it  is  as 
pedantic  to  insist  on  archaic  forms  of  the  name  as  it 
would  be  to  insist  on  the  Saxon  form  of  the  office. 
Since  Edward  was  not  called  by  his  contemporaries 
either  '  King '  or  '  The  Elder,'  what  do  we  gain  by  such 
a  hybrid  phrase  as  '  King  Eadweard  the  Elder '  ? 


484  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

It  is  only  a  half-hearted  realism  which  writes — 
'  Eadweard  was  now  King  of  all  England.'  It  should 
run: — ' Eadweard  was  now  Cyning  of  all  Engla-land. 
It  is  quite  correct  to  write  in  modern  English  : — '  King 
Edward  marched  from  London  to  York.'  Here,  the 
proper  names  are  all  alike  adapted  to  our  vernacular. 
It  is  an  anachronism,  or  an  anarchaism,  to  write — '  King 
Eadweard  marched  from  London  to  York.'  It  ought 
to  run,  if  we  are  bent  on  writing  pure  old  English, 
'  Eadweard  Cyning  marched  from  Lundenbyryg  to 
Eoforwlc!  That  is  the  real  couleur  locale ;  but  the 
general  reader  could  hardly  stand  many  pages  of  this. 
It  is  not  true  in  fact  that  '  AZtJielberht  lived  at  Canter- 
bury.' He  lived  at  '  Cant-wara-byryg!  Ethelbert, 
however,  may  properly  be  said  to  have  lived  at 
Canterbury.  For  thirteen  centuries  Canterbury  and 
York  have  been  famous  centres  of  our  English  life. 
Except  in  a  parenthesis,  or  in  a  monograph,  it  would 
be  a  nuisance  to  mention  them  under  the  cumbrous 
disguises  of  '  Eoforwlc '  and  '  Cant-wara-byryg* ;  and 
for  precisely  the  same  reason  it  is  a  nuisance  to  read, 
Alfred,  Ecgberht,  and  Eadweard. 

Where  is  it  going  to  stop  ?  Ours  is  an  age  of 
archaeology,  revival,  and  research  ;  and  in  no  field  is 
research  more  active  than  in  Biblical  and  other  Oriental 
history.  The  grand  familiar  names,  which  have  had  a 
charm  for  us  from  childhood,  which  have  kindled  the 
veneration  of  a  long  roll  of  centuries,  are  all  being 
'  restored '  to  satisfy  an  antiquarian  purism.  We  shall 
soon  be  invited  to  call  Moses,  Mosheh,  as  his  con- 
temporaries did.  Judah  should  be  written  Yehuda  ; 
Jacob  will  be  Ya'aqdb.  Our  old  friend  Job  will  appear, 
clothed  and  in  his  right  mind,  as  lyob.  The  prophet 
Elijah  is  Eliyahu ;  and  the  prophet  Isaiah  is  now 


PAL/EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  485 

metamorphosed    into    Yeshayahu.      Imagine   how   our 
descendants  will  have  to  rewrite  the  lines  : — 

'O  thou  my  voice  inspire, 
Who  touch'd  Yeshayahu? s  hallow'd  lips  with  fire. ' 

And  the  teacher  will  have  to  explain  to  our  grand- 
children that  'Isaiah'  is  an  old  vulgarism  for  Yeshayahu. 
'  Jerusalem  the  Golden '  will  appear  in  the  children's 
hymns  as  Yerfishalaim ;  and  when  we  speak  of  the 
walls  of  JericJw  we  must  sneeze,  and  say  J'recho.  We 
must  say — the  Proverbs  of  Shelomoh,  But  this  is  not 
the  end  of  it  The  very  names  in  men's  prayers  and 
devotions  must  be  reformed.  Catholics  must  learn  to 
say  their  Aves  to  '  Maridm ' ;  and  the  Protestant  must 
meditate  on  the  'Blood  of  Jehoshua.' 

The  historical  mind  will  so  have  it.  It  has  laid  down 
a  rigid  canon  that  proper  names  should  be  spelt  in  the 
form  in  which  their  contemporaries  wrote  them.  And 
if  Alfred,  a  name  which  for  so  many  centuries  has  been 
a  watchword  to  the  English  race,  is  to  be  'restored' 
into  ^Elfred,  because  he  and  his  so  spoke  it  and  wrote 
it ;  by  the  same  rule  must  we  speak  and  write  of 
Jehoshna  of  Nazareth,  using  the  same  letters  in  which 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  of  his  day  recorded  the  name 
in  official  Hebrew.  The  historical  mind  has  said  it ; 
and  English  literature,  custom,  the  vernacular  speech, 
poetry,  patriotism,  and  devotion,  must  all  give  way. 

The  historical  mind  has  an  almost  unlimited  field  ; 
and  all  the  names  it  records  will  have  to  be  '  restored ' 
in  turn.  When  Mosheh  led  forth  the  people  of  YehAda 
to  the  promised  Yertlshalatm,  he  really  led  them  out  of 
Chemi  or  Kebt-hor,  not  out  of '  Egypt,'  which  is  a  Greek 
corruption.  And  Pi-Re  and  all  his  host  were  drowned 
in  the  Yam-Siiph  ;  for  of  course  Red  Sea  is  a  mere 


486  THE   MEANING   OF    HISTORY 

translation  of  a  late  Hellenic  term.  About  the  central 
Asian  monarchies  we  fortunately  have  an  imperishable 
and  infallible  record  ;  for  the  great  king  himself  inscribed 
on  the  eternal  rock  the  names  of  his  ancestors  and  his 
contemporaries.  It  is  therefore  inexcusable  in  us  if  \vc 
continue  to  write  the  names  of  Oriental  sovereigns  in 
the  clumsy  corruptions  of  ignorant  Greeks. 

All  history  contains  no  record  more  authentic  than 
the  sculptured  rock  of  Behistun,  whereon  the  names  of 
the  great  kings  stand  graven  in  characters  as  unalterable 
as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  the  Persians.  '  Darius,' 
we  used  to  write  in  our  ignorant  way,  '  became  King  of 
Persia,  Susiana,  Babylonia,  Assyria,  Arabia,  and  Egypt.' 
Not  so  was  it  said  by  them  of  old  time  ;  not  Darius, 
but  Ddrayavnsh ;  not  king,  but  Khshdyathiya.  So, 
then,  the  geography  lessons  of  our  grandsons  will  run  : 
— '  Ddrayavush  was  the  Khshdyathiya  of  Pdrsa,  of 
'  Uvaja,  of  Bdbirush,  of  Athurd,  of  Arabdya,  of  Mndrdya? 
The  entire  orthography  of  the  Median  and  Persian 
Dynasties  is  now  complete  and  exact.  It  was  not 
'  Cyrus '  who  founded  the  Persian  Empire,  as  we  used 
to  be  told :  it  was  Kuraush.  The  famous  king  who 
perished  in  the  desert  was  Kdbuj'iya,  the  son  of  Kuraush. 
And  both,  beside  their  own  ancestral  dominion  of 
Pdrsa,  ruled  over  the  mighty  world-famous  city  of 
Bdbirum,  and  the  country  which  lay  between  the  rivers 
Tigrdm  and  Ufrdtauvd.  Oriental  history  is  at  last  as 
simple  as  an  infant's  ABC. 

And  we  are  now  able  to  record  the  immortal  tale  of 
the  war  between  Hellas  and  Pdrsa  with  some  regard 
for  orthographic  accuracy.  It  was  Khshaydrshd  who 
mustered  the  millions  of  Asia  in  the  great  struggle 
which  ended  in  the  glorious  battles  of  the  Hot  Gates 
and  of  Psyttale ia.  His  great  generals,  Ariyabhaja  and 


PAL^iOGRAPHIC   PURISM  487 

Munduniya,  met  the  Hellenic  hoplites  only  to  court 
defeat ;  and  Khshaydrshd,  the  son  of  Ddryavush,  at 
length  withdrew  from  a  land  which  seemed  fatal  to 
the  entire  race  of  Hakkdmanish,  and  sought  rest  in  his 
luxurious  palace  of  'Uvaja.  So  will  run  the  Hellenic 
histories  of  the  future,  in  an  orthography  not  quite  so 
cacophonous  and  hieroglyphic  as  many  a  page  in  the 
Making  of  England. 

Oriental  literature  is  making  vast  strides,  and  the 
authentic  books  of  the  East  are  daily  brought  closer 
and  clearer  to  our  firesides.  And  under  the  influence 
of  this  learning  our  very  children  are  coming  to  be 
familiar  with  the  new  dress  of  the  old  names.  We  have 
grown  out  of  '  Mahomet,'  '  Moslem,'  '  Koran,'  and 
'  Hegira,'  and  we  are  careful  to  write  Muhammad, 
Muslim,  Qur'dn,  and  Hejra.  For  our  old  friend 
Mahomet  and  his  Koran  various  professors  contend. 
Mohammed,  Muhammad,  Mahmoud,  and  Mehemet  have 
had  their  day ;  and  now  they  are  contending  whether 
Qur'an  or  Qordn  best  represents  the  exact  cacophony 
of  the  native  Arabic.  And  so  on  through  the  whole 
series  of  famous  Oriental  names :  the  Zend-Avesta,  or 
Avesta,  the  Upanishads,  K'ung  Foo-tsze,  Tsze-Kung, 
and  Tsze-Sze.  Scholars,  of  course,  have  to  tell  us  all 
about  the  Sukhdvati-  Vyuha  and  the  Pra<gnd-Pdramitd- 
Hridaya-Sutra ;  but  the  question  is,  if  the  rising 
generation  will  ever  be  familiarised  with  these  elaborate 
names. 

It  may  be  doubted  if,  after  all,  the  exact  equivalent 
of  these  foreign  sounds  can  ever  be  presented  to  the 
English  reader  by  any  system  of  phonetic  spelling ;  all 
the  more  when  this  spelling  has  to  call  to  its  aid  an 
elaborate  system  of  circumflex,  diphthong,  comma, 
italic,  breathing  Sh'va  and  Daghesh,  most  alien  to  the 


488  THE    MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

genius  of  our  language.  Can  a  man,  unlearned  in  the 
respective  tongues,  pronounce  K'ung-Foo-tsze,  Kur- 
fiirst  of  Koln,  Qurdn,  with  any  real  correctness?  And, 
if  he  cannot,  is  it  worth  while  to  upset  the  practice  of 
Europe  for  centuries,  and  so  vast  a  concurrence  of 
literature,  for  the  sake  of  a  phonetic  orthography  which 
is  almost  picture-writing  in  its  lavish  use  of  symbols : 
and  all  in  pursuit  of  an  accuracy  which  can  never  be 
consistently  adopted  ?  It  may  look  very  learned,  but  is 
it  common  sense  ? 

It  so  happens  that  almost  all  of  the  Founders  of 
Religions  in  the  East  are  known  to  us  by  certain 
familiar  names,  which  are  obviously  not  the  actual 
names  they  bore  in  their  lifetime ;  but  which  for 
centuries  have  passed  current  in  the  literary  speech 
of  Europe.  Confucius,  Mencius,  Buddha,  Zoroaster, 
Mahomet,  Moses,  and  Jesus  are  popular  adaptations 
of  names  which  the  European  languages  could  not 
easily  assimilate.  As  such  those  names  are  embedded 
in  a  thousand  works  of  poetry,  history,  and  criticism, 
and  have  gathered  round  them  an  imposing  mass  of 
interest  and  tradition.  Is  it  not  almost  an  outrage  to 
discard  these  old  associations  and  to  re-baptize  these 
hoary  elders  with  the  newfangled  literalism  of  phonetic 
pedantry?  Kung-Foo-tsze,  Mang-tsze,  SAkyamouni,  or 
SiddhArlha,  Zarathustra  or  Zerdusht,  Muhammad, 
Mdsheh,  and  Jehoshua,  may  be  attempts  to  imitate  the 
sounds  emitted  by  their  contemporaries  in  Asia,  but 
they  are  an  offence  in  Europe  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
which  has  long  known  these  mighty  teachers  under  names 
that  association  has  hallowed  to  our  ears.  If  scholarship 
requires  us  to  sacrifice  these  old  familiar  names,  the 
necessity  applies  to  all  alike.  If  we  are  henceforth  to 
talk  of  the  Qur'an  of  Muhammad,  we  had  better  give 


PAL.^EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  489 

out  the  first  lesson  in  church  from  the  Torath  of  the 
law-giver  Mosheh. 

And,  of  course,  our  Roman  history  will  have  to  be 
'  restored.'  '  Romans]  '  Etruscans,'  '  Tarquinj  '  Appius 
Claudius}  and  the  rest  are  now  the  Ramnes,  the  Ras- 
enna,  Tarchnaf,  and  Attus  Clauzus.  What  is  to  be  the 
final  issue  of  that  bottomless  pit  of  Roman  embryology, 
Dr.  Mommsen  only  knows.  All  that  we  now  behold  is 
a  weltering  gulf  of  Ramnes,  Tities,  Sabelli,  Ras,  Curites, 
where  archaic  and  ethnologic  fumes  roll  upwards  in- 
cessantly, as  from  an  unfathomable  crater.  Some  day 
we  shall  know  what  was  the  true,  unpronounced,  and 
undivulged  name  of  Rome ;  and  what  is  the  true 
phonetic  equivalen'  t  of  Romulus '  and  '  Numa,'  of  '  Tar- 
quin '  and  ' Brutus'  We  are  even  now  in  a  position  to 
speak  with  accuracy  of  the  later  history.  When  they 
come  to  the  Punic  wars,  our  boys  and  girls  in  the 
Board-schools  of  the  twentieth  century  will  learn  to 
say : — '  The  great  contest  now  begins  between  the 
Ramnes  and  the  Chna-ites  of  the  mighty  city  of  Kereth- 
Hadeshoth  ;  '  A  n-nee-baal,'  the  son  of  '  A  m-Melech- 
y£Yr/rt//V  proved  himself  the  greatest  general  of  antiquity  ; 
but,  when  he  was  overwhelmed  in  the  final  defeat  of 
Naraggara,  the  city  of  Queen  Jedidiah  fell  before  the 
irresistible  valour  of  the  worshippers  of  Diovispater! 
And  when  the  young  scholars  get  down  to  the  Kym-ry 
and  the  Galtachd,  the  Vergo-breiths,  Ver-kenn-kedo-righ, 
Or-kedo-righ,  Cara-dawg,  and  Heer-fiirst,  may  mercy 
keep  their  poor  little  souls  !  There  are  Gdltachd-ic,  and 
Kym-ric,  and  Duitisch  enthusiasts,  as  well  as  those  of 
Wessex  and  Gwent.  I  understand  there  are  people  even 
now  who  want  us  to  call  Paris — Loukh-teith. 

A  very  large  proportion  of  famous  men  have  been 
known  in  history  and  commemorated  in  literature 


490  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

under  names  other  than  those  given  to  them  by  their 
godfathers  and  their  -godmothers  in  their  baptism,  or 
those  that  were  entered  in  the  parish  register.  Under 
those  names  we  love  them,  think  of  them,  and  feel  akin 
to  them.  Their  names  are  household  words  :  a  part  of 
European  literature,  and  fill  us  with  kindly  and  filial 
feelings.  These  good  old  names  are  being  steadily 
supplanted  by  the  alphabetic  martinets  who  recall  us  to 
the  register  with  all  the  formalism  of  a  parish  clerk  or 
a  Herald  from  the  College.  Not  Moliere,  but  Poqucliti  ; 
not  Voltaire,  but  Arouet',  not  George  Sand,  but  the 
Baroness  Dudevant ;  not  Madame  de  Se'vigne',  but  Marie 
de  Rabutin-Chantal.  It  will  soon  be  a  sign  of  ignor- 
ance to  speak  of  Tom  Jones  and  Becky  Sharp.  It  will 
be  Thomas  Summer,  Esq.,  Junior,  J.P.,  and  Mrs.  Joseph 
Sedley.  We  shall  soon  have  the  Essays  of  Viscount  St. 
Albans,  and  the  Letters  of  the  Earl  of  Orford. 

Every  reader  is  familiar  with  the  consummate  perfec- 
tion of  the  Library  of  the  British  Museum,  the  glory  of 
British,  the  envy  of  foreign  scholars.  And  it  gives  one 
an  awful  sense  of  the  growth  of  this  form  of  purism 
to  watch  it  invading  our  noble  library.  Go  to  the 
Catalogue  and  turn  to  Voltaire,  and  you  will  read 
'  Voltaire,  see  Arouet;'  and  you  will  have  to  trudge  to 
the  other  end  of  the  enormous  alphabet.  Why  Arouetl 
What  has  his  legal  name  to  do  with  a  writer  who  put 
his  name,  Voltaire,  on  the  title-page  of  thousands  of 
editions,  and  never  on  one,  Arouetl  And  Molierel — is 
not  Moliere,  as  a  name,  a  part  of  modern  literature? 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang  tells  a  most  delightful  story  of  a 
printer,  who  found  in  his  '  copy '  some  reference  to  '  the 
Scapin  of  Poquelin!  This  hopelessly  puzzled  him,  till 
a  bright  idea  struck  his  inventive  mind,  and  he  printed 
it — '  the  Scapin  of  M.  Coqueltn.' 


PAL^OGRAPHIC   PURISM  491 

Turn,  in  the  Reference  Catalogue  of  the  Museum, 
to  Madame  de  Sevigne,  and  we  read  : — '  Sevigne,  Marie 
de  Rabutin-Chantal,  Marchioness  de: — see  Rabutin- 
Chantal!  Why  should  we  'see'  Rabutin-Chantan 
That  was  her  maiden-name ;  and  since  she  married  at 
eighteen,  and  her  works  are  letters  to  her  daughter,  it 
seems  a  little  odd  to  dub  an  elderly  mamma  of  rank  by 
her  maiden-name.  And  what  in  the  name  of  precision 
is  '  Marchioness  de'  ?  It  is  like  saying  '  Mister  Von  Goethe' 
Once  attempt  a  minute  heraldic  accuracy,  and  endless 
confusion  results.  Why  need  '  Mrs.  Nicholls '  appear  in 
the  catalogue  of  the  works  of  Currer  Bein  And  why 
need  George  Eliot  be  entered  as  Marian  Evans — a 
name  which  the  great  novelist  did  not  bear  either  in 
literature  or  in  private  life  ? 

If  we  apply  the  baptismal-certificate  theory  strictly 
to  history,  universal  confusion  will  result.  Law  students 
will  have  to  study  the  Digest  of  Uprauda.  His  great 
general  will  be  Beli-Tzar.  And  by  the  same  rule,  the 
heroic  Saladin  becomes  Salah-ed-deen,  or  rather,  Malek- 
Nasser-Yousouf;  Dante  becomes  Durante  Alighieri; 
Copernicus  is  Kopernik ;  and  Columbus  becomes  Cris- 
tobal Colon.  If  baptismal  registers  are  decisive,  we 
must  turn  '  Erasmus '  into  Gerhardt  Praet ;  '  Melancthon  ' 
into  Schwarzerd;  and  '  Scaliger '  into  Bordoni.  There 
is  no  more  reason  to  change  Alfred  into  dELlfred  and 
Frederick  into  Friedrich  than  there  would  be  to  trans- 
form the  great  sailor  into  Crist6bal  Colon,  and  to  talk 
about  the  Code  of  Uprauda. 

And  the  dear  old  painters,  almost  every  one  of  whom 
has  a  familiar  cognomen  which  has  made  the  tour  of 
the  civilised  world.  What  a  nuisance  it  is  to  read  in 
galleries  and  catalogues,  Vecellio,  Vannucci,  and  Cagliari, 
in  lieu  of  our  old  friends  Titian,  Perugino,  and  Veronese ! 


492  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

Raphael  and  Michael  Angela,  Masaccio  and  Tintoretto 
are  no  more:  'restorers'  in  oil  are  renewing  for  us  tin- 
original  brilliancy  of  their  hues  ;  whilst  '  restorers '  in 
ink  are  erasing  the  friendly  old  nick-names  with  vcrn 
copias  of  the  baptismal  certificates  in  their  hands.  Every 
chit  of  an  testhete  will  talk  to  you  about  the  Cenacolo, 
or  the  Sposalizio,  of  Sanzio ;  and  the  Paradiso  in  the 
Palazzo  Ducale ;  though  these  words  are  nearly  the 
limit  of  his  entire  Italian  vocabulary.  This  new  poly- 
glot language  of  historians  and  artists  is  becoming, 
in  fact,  the  speech  which  is  known  to  the  curious  as 
macaronic.  It  recalls  the  famous  lines  of  our  youth  : — 
Trumpeter  unus  erat,  coatum  qui  scarlet  habebat. 

There  are  two  fatal  impediments  to  this  attempt  at 
reproducing  archaic  sounds.  It  is  at  best  but  a  clumsy 
symbolism  of  unpronounceable  vocables,  and  it  never  is, 
and  never  can  be,  consistently  applied.  ALthelthryth, 
Hrofesceaster,  and  Gruffydd  are  grotesque  agglomera- 
tions of  letters  to  represent  sounds  which  are  not 
familiar  to  English  ears  or  utterable  by  English  lips. 
The  '  Old  English  '  school  pur  sang  do  not  hesitate  to 
fill  whole  sentences  of  what  is  meant  to  be  modern  and 
popular  English  with  these  choking  words.  Professor 
Freeman  used  obsolete  letters  in  an  English  sentence. 
Now,  I  venture  to  say  that  English  literature  requires 
a  work  which  is  intended  to  take  a  place  in  it,  to  be 
written  in  the  English  language.  In  mere  glossaries, 
commentaries,  and  philological  treatises,  the  obsolete 
letters  and  obsolete  spelling  have  their  place.  But  in 
literature,  the  <5  and  >  are  as  completely  dead  as  a 
Greek  Digamma. 

The  most  glaring  defect  of  this  '  Neo-Saxonism '  is 
its  inconsistency.  Human  nature  would  revolt  if  all 
the  schools  were  to  adopt  the  same  rule ;  but  each 


PAL/EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  493 

separate  school  contradicts  itself  in  the  same  page.  It 
is  curious  that  the  '  Old-English '  school  wantonly 
modernise  the  spelling  of  names  which  happen  not  to 
be  '  Old-English.'  They  first  mangle  the  traditions  of 
English  literature  by  twisting  household  words  into  an 
archaic  form  ;  and  then,  in  the  case  of  names  of  the 
Latin  race,  they  mangle  the  traditions  of  English  and 
of  foreign  literature  at  once,  by  twisting  other  house- 
hold words  into  a  modern  Anglicised  form.  Mr.  Free- 
man writes  in  his  great  history  : — '  Alfred  compared 
with  Lewis  IX.'  Now,  here  is  a  double  violation  of  the 
traditions  of  English  literature ;  not  on  the  same,  but 
on  two  contradictory  principles.  '  Saint  Louis '  is  as 
familiar  to  us  as  '  Alfred.'  In  French  and  in  English, 
the  name  has  long  been  written,  Louis,  which  is  certainly 
the  actual  French  form.  But,  as  Saint  Louis  was  only 
a  Frenchman,  and  not  a  West-Saxon,  his  true  name  is 
Anglicised  into  what  (in  spite  of  Macaulay)  is  an 
obsolete  form.  And  Alfred,  who  is  West-Saxon  pur 
sang,  is  promoted  or  '  translated '  into  Alfred.  If  Lewis 
can  be  shown  to  be  literary  English  (and  there  was 
something  to  be  said  for  that  suggestion  in  Swift's  time) 
one  would  not  object.  But  by  that  rule,  Alfred  must 
stand ;  for  assuredly  that  is  literary  English.  One 
cannot  have  it  both  ways,  except  on  the  assumption 
that  you  intend  to  spell  none  but  your  favourite  race 
with  archaic  precision. 

William  the  Conqueror,  the  great  subject  of  Mr. 
Freeman's  great  book,  was  king  of  England  for  some 
twenty-one  years  and  one  of  the  mightiest  kings  who 
ever  ruled  here.  In  Latin,  his  contemporaries  called 
him  Willelmus,  Wilielmus,  or  Wilgelmus ;  in  French, 
Guillaume,  or  Willame;  in  English,  Wtllelm.  We 
have  his  charter  in  English  to  this  day ;  which  runs — 


494  Tin-:  MEANING  OF  IIISTOKV 

'  Willelm  Kyng  gret  Will  elm  BisceopJ  Now,  if  we  a  re- 
obliged  to  write  Alfred,  and  Eadward,  why  not  write 
the  Conqueror  in  one  of  the  forms  that  his  contempo- 
raries used  ?  But  no  ;  the  great  founder  of  the  new 
English  monarchy  never  got  over  the  original  sin  of 
being  a  Frenchman  ;  and  so  he  is  modernised  like  any 
mere  '  Lewis,'  or  '  Henry  I  or  '  Philip' 

In  the  case  of  English  kings,  their  wives  and  relations 
of  non-English  blood,  this  school  can  leave  them  to 
the  vulgar  tongue.  It  is  William,  Henry,  Margaret, 
Matilda,  Mary,  Stephen,  and  so  on.  No  doubt  it  would 
look  very  odd  in  an  English  history  to  read  about  our 
sovereigns  '  Stephen  (or  Estienne)  fighting  with  the 
Kaiserinn  Mathildis'  But  then,  what  is  the  good  of 
all  this  precision  if  it  is  so  grossly  inconsistent  ?  They 
who  insist  on  talking  of  Elsass  and  Lothringen  write, 
like  the  rest  of  us,  Venice  and  Florence.  And  Mr.  Free- 
man, who  is  quite  content  with  William  and  Stephen, 
mere  modern  Anglicisms,  is  very  particular  how  he 
writes  Sdkrates.  He  happens  to  be  fond  of  West-Saxon 
annals  and  Greek  philosophers.  And  so,  both  are 
recorded  in  the  aboriginal  cacophony. 

But  there  is  a  far  more  serious  change  of,  name  that 
the  '  Old-English '  school  have  introduced  ;  which,  if  it 
were  indefinitely  extended,  would  wantonly  confuse 
historical  literature.  I  mean  the  attempt  to  alter  names 
which  are  the  accepted  landmarks  of  history.  It  is  now 
thought  scholarly  to  write  of  the  'Battle  of  Senlac,' 
instead  of  the  '  Battle  of  Hastings'  As  every  one 
knows,  the  fight  took  place  on  the  site  of  Battle  Abbey, 
seven  miles  from  Hastings ;  as  so  many  great  battles, 
those  of  Tours,  Blenheim,  Canna,  Chdions,  and  the  like, 
have  been  named  from  places  not  the  actual  spot  of  the 
combat.  But  since,  for  eight  hundred  years,  the  historians 


PAL^EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  495 

of  Europe  have  spoken  of  the  '  Battle  of  Hastings,'  it  does 
seem  a  little  pedantic  to  re-name  it.  '  Hastings '  is  the 
only  name  given  to  the  battle  in  Wiilelm's  Domesday 
Survey ;  it  is  the  only  name  given  by  the  Bayeux 
Tapestry.  '  Exierunt  de  Hestenga  et  venerunt  ad 
prelium'  is  there  written — not  a  word  about  Senlac. 
The  nameless  author  of  the  Continuation  of  Wace's 
Brut  says : — 

A  Hastinges,  sunt  encontre 
Li  rois  e  li  dux  par  grant  fierte. 

And  Guy,  Bishop  of  Amiens  from  1058-1076  A.D.,  wrote 
a  poem,  ' De  Hastings  prczlio'  One  would  think  all 
this  was  sufficient  authority  for  us  to  continue  a  name 
recorded  in  history  for  eight  centuries.  So  far  as  I 
know,  there  is  no  positive  evidence  that  Senlac  was  a 
place  at  all ;  the  sole  authority  for  '  Battle  of  Senlac '  is 
Orderic,  an  English  monk  who  left  England  at  the  age 
of  nine  and  lived  and  wrote  in  Normandy  in  the  next 
century.  Yet,  on  the  strength  of  this  authority,  the 
'  Old  English '  school  would  erase  from  English  litera- 
ture one  of  our  most  familiar  names. 

Battles  are  seldom  named  with  geographical  precision, 
The  victors  hastily  give  the  first  name ;  and  so  it  passes 
into  current  speech.  To  be  accurate,  the  Battle  of 
Salamis  should  be  the  Battle  of  Psyttaleia ;  the  Battle 
of  Canna  should  be  named  from  the  Aufidus;  and  the 
'  Battle  of  Zania '  was  really  fought  at  Naraggara. 
Imagine  a  historian  of  the  future  choosing  to  re-name 
the  Battle  of  Waterloo  from  Hougoumont ;  because,  in 
the  twentieth  century,  some  French  writer  should  so 
describe  it.  The  Battle  of  Trafalgar  would  have  to  be 
described  as  the  sea-fight  of '  Longitude  6°  f  5"  West, 
and  Latitude  36°  10'  15"  North.'  In  old  days  we  used 
to  say  that  'Charles  Martel  defeated  the  Saracens  in 


496  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

the  battle  of  Tours.'  So  wrote  Gibbon,  Hallam, 
Milman.  Now,  we  shall  have  to  write — '  Karl  tJic 
Hammer  defeated  the  Ya'arabs  of  Yemen  on  the 
plateau  of  Sancta  Maura'  Surely  all  this  is  the 
mint  and  anise  of  the  annals,  neglecting  the  weightier 
matters  of  the  law. 

Has  not  the  '  Old-English '  school  made  rather  too 
much  that  Karl  the  Great  was  not  a  Gaul ;  and  that 
'the  Anglo-Saxons'  was  not  the  ordinary  name  of 
any  English  tribe?  No  one  is  ever  likely  to  make 
these  blunders  again  ;  but  to  taboo  these  convenient 
old  names  from  English  literature  is  surely  a  needless 
purism.  '  Charlemagne '  has  been  spoken  of  in  England 
ever  since,  as  Wace  tell  us,  Taillefer  at  Hastings  died 
singing  '  De  Karlemaine  e  de  Rollant ; '  and  in  an 
enormous  body  of  literature  for  a  thousand  years 
Charles  has  been  so  named.  The  reason  is  obvious 
enough  ;  the  great  Emperor  has  become  known  to  us 
mainly  through  Latin,  French,  and  Old-French  sources, 
Chansons  de  Gestes,  and  metrical  tales  in  a  Romance 
dialect.  That  in  itself  is  an  interesting  and  important 
fact  in  literary  history.  The  pure  Frank  sources,  in  a 
Teutonic  dialect,  are  very  much  fewer  and  less  known. 
The  name  '  Charlemagne '  is  as  much  a  part  of  the 
English  language  as  is  the  title,  ' Emperor',  and  it  is  as 
little  likely  to  be  displaced  by  any  contemporary 
phonogram  as  the  names  of  Moses  and  Jesus.  Let 
Germans  talk  about  Kaiser  Karl :  Englishmen  of  sense 
will  continue  to  talk  of  the  '  Emperor  Charlemagne : ' 
a  name  which  is  used  by  Gibbon  and  Milman,  by 
Hallam  and  Sir  Henry  Maine. 

And  so,  '  Anglo-Saxon  '  is  a  very  convenient  term  to 
describe  the  vernacular  speech  used  in  England  before 
its  settlement  by  the  Normans.  '  Old  English '  is  a 


PAL/EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  497 

vague  and  elastic  term.  In  one  sense,  the  orthography 
of  Dryden  or  of  Milton  is  Old-English  ;  so  is  Spenser's, 
or  Chaucer's,  or  the  Ancren  Riwle.  We  want  a  con- 
venient term  for  the  speech  of  Englishmen,  before  it 
was  affected  by  the  Conquest.  Edward  the  Elder,  the 
first  true  King  of  all  England,  chose  to  call  himself 
'  Rex  Angul-Saxonuui '  ;  and  an  immense  succession 
of  historians  and  scholars  have  used  the  term  Anglo- 
Saxon.  Is  not  that  enough?  The  most  learned 
authorities  for  this  period  have  used  it :  men  like 
Kemble,  Bosworth,  Thorpe,  and  Skeat.  So  too, 
Bishop  Stubbs,  in  his  magnificent  work,  systematically 
employs  a  term  which  is  part  of  the  English  language, 
quite  apart  from  its  being  current  amongst  this  or  that 
tribe  of  Engles  or  West  Saxons.  Perhaps,  then,  we  need 
not  be  in  such  a  hurry  to  outlaw  a  term  that  was  for- 
mally adopted  for  our  nation  by  the  first  King  of  all 
England,  and  has  since  been  in  use  in  the  language. 

There  is  something  alien  to  the  true  historic  spirit 
in  any  race  jealousy  and  ethnological  partisanship. 
History  is  the  unbroken  evolution  of  human  civilisa- 
tion ;  and  the  true  historians  are  they  who  can  show 
us  the  unity  and  the  sequence  of  the  vast  and  complex 
drama.  Theories  of  race  are  of  all  speculations  the 
most  cloudy  and  the  most  misleading.  And  to  few 
nations  are  they  less  applicable  than  to  England.  Our 
ethnology,  our  language,  our  history  are  as  mixed  and 
complex  as  any  of  which  records  exist.  Our  nationality 
is  as  vigorous  and  as  definite  as  any  in  the  world  ;  but 
it  is  a  geographical  and  a  political  nationality ;  and  not 
a  tribal  or  linguistic  nationality.  To  unwind  again  the 
intricate  strands  which  have  been  wrought  into  our 
English  unity,  and  to  range  them  in  classes  is  a  futile 
task.  If  we  exaggerate  the  power  of  one  particular 

2  I 


498  THE   MEANING   OF    HISTORY 

element  of  the  English  race,  one  source  of  the  English 
people,  one  side  of  English  institutions,  one  contributory 
to  the  English  language,  we  shall  find  it  a  poor  equip- 
ment for  historical  judgment. 

Race  prejudices  are  at  all  times  anti  -  historic. 
Professor  Clifford  used  to  talk  about  morality  as  an 
evolution  of  the  '  tribal '  conscience.  Assuredly  con- 
fusion is  the  only  possible  evolution  for  a  '  tribal ' 
history.  The  Carlylese  school,  and  the  Orientalists, 
and  the  Deutsch  and  Jutish  enthusiasts,  bid  fair  to 
turn  our  language  and  its  literature  into  an  ungainly 
polyglott.  Their  pages  bristle  with  Bretwaldas  and 
Heretogas,  Burks  and  Munds,  Folk-friths  and  Tun- 
gerefas ;  or  with  Reichs,  Kurfiirsts,  Pfalzes,  and 
Kaisers.  All  this  is  very  well  in  glossaries,  but  not 
in  literature.  How  absurd  it  is  to  write — '  The 
Kurfiirst  of  Kdln}  or  '  The  Ealdorman  of  the  Hwiccas ' ! 
It  is  as  if  one  wrote — 'The  Due  of  Broglie  was  once 
Ministre  of  the  Affaires  Etrangeres ' ;  or  that  '  Welling- 
ton defeated  the  Empereur  Napotion  and  all  his 
Martchaux ' :  just  as  they  do  in  a  lady's-maid's  high- 
polite  novel.  Why  are  Deutsch  and  Jutish  titles  to  be 
introduced  any  more  than  French  or  Spanish?  In 
glossaries  they  are  useful ;  but  histories  of  England 
should  be  written  in  English.  And  it  is  pleasant  to 
turn  to  a  great  book  of  history,  like  that  of  Bishop 
Stubbs ;  where,  in  spite  of  the  temptations  and  often 
of  the  necessities  of  a  specialist  dealing  with  a  technical 
subject,  the  text  is  not  needlessly  deformed  with 
obsolete,  grotesque,  and  foreign  words. 

A  wide  range  of  ethnology  and  philology  shows  us 
that  these  origins  and  primitive  tongues  were  themselves 
the  issue  of  others  before  them,  and  are  only  a  phase 
in  the  long  evolution  of  history  and  language.  These 


PAL^iOGRAPHIC   PURISM  499 

Engles,  and  Saxons,  and  Jutes,  these  Norse  and  Welsh, 
had  far  distant  seats,  and  far  earlier  modes  of  speech. 
They  were  no  more  '  Autochthones '  in  the  forests  of 
Upper  Germany  than  they  were  in  Wessex  and  Caint. 
Their  speech  has  been  traced  back  to  Aryan  roots 
current  in  Asia.  And  there,  by  the  latest  glimmerings 
of  ethnographic  science,  we  lose  all  these  Cymric,  and 
British,  and  Teutonic  tribes  in  some  (not  definable) 
affinity,  in  some  (not  ascertainable)  district  of  Central 
Asia,  with  some  (not  recoverable)  common  tongue  of 
their  own.  So  that  these  war  cries  about  the  White 
Horse,  and  Engles,  and  Jutes,  turn  out  to  mean  simply 
that  a  very  industrious  school  of  historians  choose  to 
direct  their  attention  to  one  particular  phase  of  a 
movement  which  is  in  perpetual  flux ;  and  which,  in 
time,  in  place,  and  in  speech,  can  be  traced  back  to  very 
distant  embryos  in  the  infinite  night  of  conjecture. 

It  is  treason  to  our  country  and  to  scientific  history 
to  write,  as  Mr.  Green  ventured  to  do  in  his  fine  and 
eloquent  histories  of  England,  that  'with  the  landing 
of  Hengest  English  history  begins.'  The  history  of 
England  is  something  more  than  the  tribal  records  of 
the  Engles.  The  history  of  England  began  with  the 
first  authentic  story  of  organised  communities  of  men 
living  in  this  island  :  and  that  most  certainly  existed 
since  Caesar  narrated  his  own  campaigns  in  Britain. 
The  history  of  England,  or  the  history  of  France,  is  the 
consecutive  record  of  the  political  communities  of  men 
dwelling  in  the  lands  now  called  England  and  France. 
The  really  great  problem  for  history  is  the  assimilation 
of  race  and  the  co-operation  of  alien  forces.  And  so, 
too,  the  note  of  true  literature  lies  in  a  loyal  submission 
to  the  traditions  of  our  composite  tongue,  and  respect 
for  an  instrument  which  is  hallowed  by  the  custom  of 


500  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

so  many  masterpieces.  Loyal  respect  for  that  glorious 
speech  would  teach  us  to  be  slow  how  we  desecrate 
its  familiar  names  with  brand-new  archaisms  ;  how  we 
ruffle  its  easy  flow  with  alien  cacophonies  and  solecisms, 
and  deform  its  familiar  typography  with  hieroglyphic 
phonograms. 

In  passing  from  the  literary  iconoclasm  of  the  '  Old- 
English  '  school  I  would  venture  to  add  that  no  man  is 
a  more  humble  admirer  than  I  am  of  the  vast  learning 
and  the  marvellous  powers  of  research  belonging  to  the 
author  of  the  Norman  Conquest.  Nor  can  any  man 
more  deeply  deplore  another  disaster  which  our  literature 
has  sustained  in  the  premature  loss  of  the  author  of  A 
Short  History  of  England:  one  who  in  his  brief  time 
has  shown  such  historical  imagination  and  such  literary 
power,  that  it  is  impossible  to  mention  him  without 
a  pang  of  regret.  Si,  qua  fata  aspera  rumpas,  Tu 
Marcellus  eris. 

We  may  add  a  few  words  about  various  names  which 
under  the  influence  of  a  most  mistaken  literalism  are 
being  wantonly  transformed.  Persons  who  are  anxious 
to  appear  well  informed  seem  almost  ashamed  to  spell 
familiar  names  as  their  grandfathers  did.  What  is  the 
meaning  of  '  Vergil '?  As  every  one  knows,  the  best 
MSS.  in  the  last  lines  of  the  fourth  Georgic  spell  Vergil- 
ium  ;  and  accordingly  some  scholars  think  fit  so  to  alter 
the  poet's  name.  Be  it  so.  But  '  Vergil'  is  not  Latin, 
any  more  than  '  Homer '  is  Greek.  Virgil  is  a  familiar 
word,  rooted  deep  in  English  literature  and  thought. 
To  uproot  it,  and  the  like  of  it,  would  be  to  turn  the 
English  language  into  a  quagmire.  We  shall  be  asked 
next  to  write  '  OmerJ  If  all  our  familiar  names  are  to  be 
recast,  as  new  manuscripts  or  autographs  turn  up,  none 
of  these  venerable  names  will  remain  to  us.  We  shall 


PAL/EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  5<DI 

have  to  talk  of  the  epic  poets,  Omeros  and  Durante. 
Again,  if  autographs  are  conclusive,  we  shall  have  to 
write  of  Marie,  Quean  of  Scots,  and  Lady  Jane  Duddley  ; 
of  the  statesmen,  Cecyll  and  Walsyngham  ;  of  '  Lord 
Nelson  and  Bronte',  of  the  great  Maryborough,  of  the 
poet  Noel- Byron,  of  Sir  Kenelme  Digby,  Sir  Philip 
Sidnei,  and  A  rbella  Seyniaure  ;  of  Bloody  '  Marye,'  and 
Robert  Duddley,  Earl  of  Leycester.  All  of  these  queer 
forms  are  the  actual  names  signed  by  these  personages 
in  extant  autographs.  The  next  step  will  be  to  write 
about  these  personages  in  the  contemporary  style  ;  and 
archaic  orthography  will  pass  from  proper  names  to  the 
entire  text. 

The  objection  to  insisting  on  strict  contemporary 
orthography  is  this  :  the  spelling  of  the  family  name  was 
continually  changing,  and  to  write  it  in  a  dozen  ways  is 
to  break  the  tradition  of  the  family.  If  we  call  Burleigh 
'  Cecyll,'  as  he  wrote  it  himself,  we  lose  the  tradition  of 
the  family  of  the  late  Prime  Minister.  If  we  call  the 
author  of  the  Arcadia  Sidnei,  as  he  wrote  it  himself,  we 
detach  him  from  the  Sidneys.  The  Percys,  Howards, 
Harcourts,  Douglas,  Wyatts,  Lindsays,  and  Mont- 
gomerys  of  our  feudal  history  will  appear  as  the  Perses, 
Hawards,  Harecourts,  Dowglas,  Wiats,  Lyndesays,  and 
Monggomberrys.  If  we  read  Chevy  Chase  in  the  pure 
palaeography,  we  shall  find  how  the  '  Doughete  dogglas ' 
spoke  to  the  '  lord  perse ' ;  and  how  there  died  in  the  fray, 
Wetharryngton  ,  ser  hewe  the  monggomberry,  ser  dauy 
Iwdale,  and  ser  charls  a  murre. 

And  then  how  the  purists  do  drag  us  up  and  down 
with  their  orthographic  edicts  !  Just  as  the  Old-English 
school  is  restoring  the  diphthong  on  every  side,  the 
classical  reformers  are  purging  it  out  like  an  unclean 
thing.  We  need  not  care  much  whether  we  write  of 

212 


502  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

Caesar  or  '  Caesar.'  But  just  as  we  have  learned  to  write 
Caesar  and  Vergil's  Aeneid,  in  place  of  our  old  friends, 
we  are  taught  to  write  Bceda  and  ^Elfred,  for  '  Bede'  and 
'  Alfred.'  The  'Old-English'  school  revel  in  diphthongs, 
even  in  the  Latin  names  ;  your  classical  purist  would 
expire  if  he  were  called  upon  to  write  '  Caesar '  or 
4  Pompey.'  Farewell  to  the  delightful  gossipy  style  of 
the  last  century  about  '  Tully,'  and  'Maro,'  and  '  Livy ' ! 
They  knew  quite  as  much  about  them  at  heart  as  we  do 
to-day  with  all  our  Medicean  manuscripts  and  our  'sic. 
Cod.  Vat: 

The  way  in  which  it  all  works  into  ordinary  books  is 
this.  The  compilers  of  dictionaries,  catalogues,  com- 
pendiums,  vade-mecums,  and  the  like,  the  writers  of 
newspaper  paragraphs  and  literary  announcements,  are 
not  only  a  most  industrious,  but  a  most  accurate  and 
most  alert,  race  of  men.  They  are  ever  on  the  watch  for 
the  latest  discovery,  and  the  last  special  work  on  every 
conceivable  topic.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they 
can  go  very  deeply  into  each  matter  themselves  ;  but 
the  latest  spelling,  the  last  new  commentary,  or  the 
newest  literary  '  find,'  is  eminently  the  field  of  their 
peculiar  work.  To  them,  the  man  who  has  abolished 
the  *  Battle  of  Hastings '  as  a  popular  error  must  know 
more  about  history  than  any  man  living ;  and  so,  the 
man  who  writes  Shakspere  has  apparently  the  latest 
lights  on  the  Elizabethan  drama.  Thus  it  comes  that 
our  ordinary  style  is  rapidly  infiltrated  with  Karls  and 
Alfreds,  and  Senlacs,  Qur'dns,  and  Shaksperes ;  till  it 
becomes  at  last  almost  a  kind  of  pedantry  to  object. 

How  foolish  is  the  attempt  to  re-name  Shakespeare 
himself  by  the  aid  of  manuscripts !  As  every  one 
knows,  the  name  of  Shakespeare  may  be  found  in  con- 
temporary documents  in  almost  every  possible  form  of 


PAL^OGRAPHIC   PURISM  503 

the  letters.  Some  of  these  are — Shakespeare,  Schakespere, 
Schakespeire,  Shakespeyre,  Chacsper,  Shakspere,  Shake- 
spere,  Shakespeere,  Shackspear,  Shakeseper,  Shackespeare, 
Saxspere,  Shackspeere,  Shaxeper,  Shaxpere,  Shaxper, 
Shaxpeer,  Shaxspere,  Shakspeare,  Shakuspeare,  Shakesper, 
SJiaksper,  Shackspere,  Shakspyr,  Shakspear,  Shakspeyr, 
Shackspeare,  Shaxkspere,  Shackspeyr,  Shaxpeare,  Shake- 
sphere,  Sackesper,  Shackspare,  Shakspeere,  Shakxsper, 
Shaxpere,  Shakspeyr,  Shagspur,  and  Shaxberd.  Here 
are  thirty-nine  of  the  contemporary  modes  of  spelling 
his  name.  Now  are  the  facsimilists  prepared  to  call 
the  great  poet  of  the  world  by  whichever  of  these, 
as  in  a  parish  election,  commands  the  majority  of  the 
written  documents  ?  So  that,  if  we  have  at  last  to  call 
our  immortal  bard,  Chacsper,  or  Shaxper,  or  Shagspur, 
we  must  accept  it ;  and  in  the  meantime  leave  his  name 
as  variable  as  ever  his  contemporaries  did  ? 

Shakespeare  no  doubt,  like  most  persons  in  that  age, 
wrote  his  name  in  various  ways.  The  extant  autographs 
differ ;  and  the  signature  which  is  thought  to  be  Shak- 
spere, has  been  simply  misread,  and  plainly  shows 
another  letter.  The  vast  preponderance  of  evidence 
establishes  that  in  the  printed  literature  of  his  time  his 
name  was  written — Shakespeare.  In  his  first  poems, 
Lucrece  and  Venus  and  Adonis,  he  placed  Shakespeare 
on  the  title-page.  So  it  stands  on  the  folios  of  1623 
and  1632.  So  also  it  was  spelled  by  his  friends  in  their 
published  works  ;  by  Ben  Jonson,  by  Bancroft,  Barne- 
field,  Willobie,  Freeman,  Davies,  Meres,  and  Weever. 
It  is  certain  that  his  name  was  pronounced  Shake-spear 
(i.e.,  as  '  Shake '  and  '  Spear '  were  then  pronounced)  by 
his  literary  friends  in  London.  This  is  shown  by  the 
punning  lines  of  Ben  Jonson,  by  those  of  Bancroft  and 
others  ;  by  Greene's  allusion  to  him  as  the  only  Shake- 


504  THE   MEANING   OF   HISTORY 

scene ;  and,  lastly,  by  the  canting  heraldry  of  the  arms 
granted  to  his  father  in  1599  : — '  In  a  field  of  gould  upon 
a  bend  sables  a  speare  of  the  first :  with  crest  a  ffalcon 
supporting  a  speare' 

It  is  very  probable  that  this  grant  of  arms,  about 
which  Dethick,  the  Garter-King,  was  blamed  and  had  to 
defend  himself,  practically  settled  the  pronunciation  as 
well  as  the  spelling.  It  is  probable  that  hitherto  the 
family  name  had  not  been  so  spelt  or  so  pronounced  in 
Warwickshire.  It  is  possible  that  Shake-speare  was 
almost  a  nick-name,  or  a  familiar  stage-name  ;  but,  like 
Erasmus,  Melancthon,  or  Voltaire,  he  who  bore  it  carried 
it  so  into  literature.  For  some  centuries  downwards,  the 
immense  concurrence  of  writers,  English  and  foreign, 
has  so  accepted  the  name.  A  great  majority  of  the 
commentators  have  adopted  the  same  form  :  Dyce, 
Collier,  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Staunton,  W.  G.  Clark.  No 
one  of  the  principal  editors  of  the  poet  writes  his  name 
'  Shakspere'  But  so  Mr.  Furnivall  decrees  it  shall  be. 

One  would  have  thought  so  great  a  preponderance  of 
literary  practice  need  not  be  disturbed  by  one  or  two 
signatures  in  manuscript,  even  if  they  were  perfectly 
distinct  and  quite  uniform.  Yet,  such  is  the  march  of 
palaeographic  purism,  that  our  great  poet  is  in  imminent 
danger  of  being  translated  into  Shakspere,  and  ultimately 
Shaxper.  The  Museum  Catalogue  devotes  six  volumes 
to  the  poet  and  his  editors.  All  these  thousands  of 
works  are  entered  under  '  Shakspere ' ;  though  in  about 
95  per  cent,  of  them  the  name  is  not  so  written.  The 
editions  of  Dyce,  Collier,  Staunton,  Halliwell-Phillipps, 
and  Clark,  which  have  Shakespeare  on  their  title-pages, 
are  lettered  in  the  binding  Shakspere.  Nay,  the  facsimile 
of  the  folio  of  1623,  where  we  not  only  read  Shakespeare 
on  the  title-page,  but  laudatory  verses  addressed  to 


PAL/EOGRAPHIC   PURISM  505 

'  Shake-speare '  (sic\  is  actually  lettered  in  the  binding 
(facsimile  as  it  purports  to  be),  Shakspere.  We  shall 
certainly  end  with  '  Shaxper! 

The  claim  of  the  palaeographists  to  re-name  great 
men  rests  on  a  confusion  of  ideas.  '  Shakespeare '  is  a 
word  in  the  English  language,  just  as  'Tragedy'  is ;  and 
it  is  in  vain  to  ask  us,  in  the  name  of  etymography^  to 
turn  that  name  into  Shakspere,  as  it  would  be  to  ask  us, 
in  the  name  of  etymology \  to  turn  '  Tragedy '  into  Goat- 
song.  The  point  is  not,  how  did  the  poet  spell  his  name 
— that  is  an  antiquarian,  not  a  literary  matter,  any  more 
than  how  Homer  or  Moses  spelled  their  names.  Homer 
and  Moses,  as  we  know,  could  not  possibly  spell  their 
names  :  since  alphabets  were  not  invented.  And,  as  in 
a  thousand  cases,  the  exact  orthography  is  not  possible  : 
the  matter  which  concerns  the  public  is  the  form  of  a 
name  which  has  obtained  currency  in  literature.  When 
once  any  name  has  obtained  that  currency  in  a  fixed 
and  settled  literature,  it  is  more  than  pedantry  to  dis- 
turb it :  it  is  an  outrage  on  our  language.  And  it  is  a 
serious  hindrance  to  popular  education  to  be  ever  un- 
settling familiar  names. 

If  we  are  to  re- edit  Shakespeare's  name  by  strict 
revival  of  contemporary  forms,  we  ought  to  alter  the 
names  of  his  plays  as  well.  There  is  reason  to  think 
that  Macbeth  was  Mcelbcethe.  The  twentieth  century 
will  go  to  see  Shaxper's  Malbcethe  performed  on  the 
stage.  And  so  they  will  have  to  go  through  the  cycle 
of  the  immortal  plays.  Hamlet  was  variously  written 
Hamblet)  Amleth,  Hamnet,  Hamle,  and  Hamlett ;  and 
every  '  revival '  of  Hamlet  will  be  given  in  a  new  name. 
Leir's  daughters  were  properly  Gonorill,  Ragan,  and 
Cordila.  If  '  Shakspere's '  own  orthography  is  decisive, 
we  must  talk  about  the  Midsummer  Nights  Dreame, 


506  THE   MEANING   OF    HISTORY 

and  Twelffe-Night,  Henry  Fift,  and  Cleopater,  for  so  he 
wrote  the  titles  himself.  Under  the  exasperating  re- 
vivalism of  the  palaeographic  school  all  things  are 
possible ;  and,  in  the  next  century,  it  will  be  the  fashion 
to  say  that  'the  master-creations  of  Shaxper  are  un- 
doubtedly Cordila,  Hamblet,  and  Madbaethe.'  Goats  and 
monkeys  !  can  we  bear  this  ? 

All  this  revivalism  rests  upon  the  delusion,  that  bits  of 
ancient  things  can  be  crammed  into  the  living  organism 
of  modern  civilisation.  Any  rational  historical  culture 
must  be  subordinate  to  organic  evolution  ;  lumps  of  the 
past  are  not  to  be  inserted  into  our  ribs,  or  thrust  down 
our  throats  like  a  horse  drench.  A  brick  or  two  from 
our  fathers'  houses  will  not  really  testify  how  they  built 
their  homes ;  and  exhuming  the  skeletons  of  their  buried 
words  may  prove  but  a  source  of  offence  to  the  living. 
An  actor  who  had  undertaken  the  character  of  Othello 
once  blacked  himself  all  over  the  body,  in  order  to  enter 
more  fully  into  the  spirit  of  the  part ;  but  it  is  not 
recorded  that  he  surpassed  either  Edmund  Kean  or 
Salvini.  So  we  are  told  that  there  exists  a  company  of 
enthusiastic  Ann-ists,  who  meet  in  the  dress  of  Addison 
and  Pope,  in  boudoirs  which  Stella  and  Vanessa  would 
recognise,  and  read  copies  of  the  old  Spectator,  reprinted 
in  contemporary  type. 

In  days  when  we  are  warned  that  the  true  feeling  for 
high  art  is  only  to  be  acquired  by  the  wearing  of  ruffles 
and  velvet  breeches,  we  shall  soon  be  expected,  when  we 
go  to  a  lecture  on  the  early  Britons,  to  stain  our  bodies 
all  over  with  woad,  in  order  to  realise  the  sensations  of 
our  ancient  '  forbears  ' ;  and  no  one  will  pass  in  English 
history  till  he  can  sputter  out  all  the  guttural  names  in 
the  Saxon  Chronicle.  Palaeography  should  keep  to  its 
place,  in  commentaries,  glossaries,  monographs,  and  the 


PAL^OGRAPHIC   PURISM  507 

like.  In  English  literature,  the  literary  name  of  the 
greatest  ruler  of  the  West  is  Charlemagne  ;  the  literary 
name  of  the  most  perfect  of  kings  is  Alfred;  and  the 
literary  name  of  the  greatest  of  poets  is  Shakespeare. 
The  entire  world,  and  not  England  alone,  has  settled  all 
this  for  centuries. 


THE   END 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  CONSTABLE,  Printers  to  Her  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press 


FS?   FREDERIC  HARRISON. 


Oliver  Cromwell.     By  FBEDEBIC  HABBISON.    Crown  8vo.    2s.  6d. 

[In  "  Twelve  English  Statesmen."] 

TIMES. — "  He  gives  a  wonderfully  vivid  picture  of  eventst  nor  does  he  shrink  from 
speculating  on  the  incidents  which  history  has  left  most  obscure.  As  for  the  grand  subject 
of  his  monograph,  he  paints  him  as  Cromwell  desired  to  be  painted."' 

ACADEMY  (Signed  S.  R.  Gardiner).— "  What  he  brings  to  his  study  of  facts  already 
ascertained  is  a  fresh  and  vigorous  mind,  illuminated  by  a  wide  knowledge  of  political  and 
social  life.  He  neither  falls  into  the  mistake  of  judging  Cromwell  by  the  test  of  any  special 
religious  creed,  nor  does  he  imagine,  as  so  many  have  imagined,  that  the  existing  British 
constitution  has  attained  to  absolute  perfection  ...  It  is  not  likely  that  any  investigation 
will  do  much  to  change  the  general  lines  which  he  has  firmly  and  skilfully  drawn." 

ATHENAEUM.— "The  picture  of  what  Oliver  did  for  England— how  the  Protectorate 
paved  the  way  for  the  orderly  freedom  that  followed — is  one  of  the  most  excellent  pieces  of 
political  disquisition  we  ever  read." 

WEEK  (Toronto). — "Mr.  Harrison,  in  brief  space,  gives  all  the  essential  facts  in  the  life 
of  the  Protector,  both  as  a  soldier  and  an  administrator,  and  outlines  a  striking  picture  of 
the  man  andt  his  time,  Which  many  more  ambitious  works  fail  to  supply.  Nor  is  Mr. 
Harrison  lacking  in  sympathy  with  the  religious  characteristics  of  Cromwell  and  his  fellow 
Puritans,  but  on  the  contrary  does  ample  justice  to  the  temper  of  the  times  and  to  the 
type  of  manhood  which  the  times  produced.  The  chapter  on  the  domestic  life  of  Cromwell, 
in  this  respect,  is  a  most  valuable  one,  and  it  should  be  read  by  every  one  who  wants  to 
understand  and  to  do  justice  to  Puritanism." 

SPECTATOR.— "Well  and  truly  has  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  told  the  story  of  Oliver 

Cromwell's  life  and  work This  supreme  quality  of  success  in  Cromwell,  which  came 

far  less  from  mere  luck  than  from  steadiness  of  purpose,  high  resolve,  and  singleness  of 
aim — Cromwell  was  never  one  of  those  men  who  have  traitors  in  their  own  breasts  and  are 
always  secretly  longing  that  things  may  both  be  and  not  be  at  the  same  time — is  well 
brought  out  in  Mr.  Harrison's  narrative.  Cromwell's  latest  biographer  shews  also  in  clear 
relief  the  tenderness  and  amiability  of  Cromwell's  private  character." 

SATURDAY  REVIEW.—"  It  generally  has  distinction  and  literary  quality.  ...  The 
merit  of  the  book  lies  in  the  fulness,  fluency,  and  (on  the  whole)  fairness  of  its  narrative  of 
facts." 

WORLD.—"  It  was  Mr.  Harrison's  fortune  to  start  with  these  advantages  ;  to  use  them 
as  he  has  is  all  to  his  own  credit.  He  is  a  bit  of  an  advocate,  no  doubt,  yet  on  the  whole 
not  unreasonably  so,  though  one  might  perhaps  demur  to  such  a  phrase  as  the  '  noble 
fanatic  Harrison,'  and  a  few  others  like  it,  as  a  little  extreme  ;  but  after  all  is  over  we  do 
not  think  even  the  most  sentimental  Royalist  will  find  much  to  seriously  dispute  in  his 
estimate  of  Oliver's  character  or  work.  Mr.  Harrison's  chief  praise,  however,  is  the  skill 
with  which  he  has  always  kept  Cromwell  in  the  foreground,  never  suffering  him  to  become 
merged  in  the  course  of  events,  merely  one  of  many  great  actors  on  a  busy  scene.  . . .  Mr. 
Harrison  has  done  an  extremely  good  piece  of  work." 

ST.  JAMES'S  GAZETTE.—"  Mr.  Harrison  has  proved  once  more  that  style,  taken  in  its 
broadest  sense  of  lucidity  of  arrangement,  unity  of  conception,  and  just  proportion  of 
treatment,  is  an  essential  quality  of  a  good  history.  It  is  a  truth  which  men  of  letters 
cannot  do  better  than  to  impress  upon  the  historians.  .  .  .  But  the  main  cause  of  Mr. 
Harrison's  success  is  the  fact  that  he  takes  a  genuine  interest  in  his  subject.  He  has  a 
hearty  admiration  for  Cromwell,  and  does  not  lind  himself  under  the  constant  necessity  of 
apologising  for  him  with  a  half-hearted  kind  of  impartiality." 

LITERARY  WORLD.—"  There  are  few  greater  themes,  and  there  is,  in  most  respects,  no 
living  writer  more  fitted  by  sympathy,  and  certainly  none  more  fitted  by  ability,  to  handle 
this  one." 

JOURNAL  OF  EDUCATION.— "The  result  is  an  admirable  portrait  of  Cromwell  as  a 
man,  a  soldier,  and  a  statesman,  which  must  take  a  high,  if  not  the  highest,  place  in  what 
promises  to  be  the  best  of  the  many  series  of  this  kind  which  have  been  published  within 
the  last  few  years." 

MACMILLAN  &   CO.,  LONDON. 


BY   FREDERIC   HARRISON. 


Annals  of  an  Old  Manor  House,  Button  Place,  Guildford.  By 
FREDERIC  HARRISON.  Illustrated  from  the  original  Drawings  by  WM. 
LUKER,  Jun.,  W.  NIVEN,  and  C.  FORSTER  HAYWARD.  Printed  on  hand- 
made paper,  and  illustrated  with  numerous  plates  after  original 
drawings,  facsimiles,  head  and  tail-pieces,  etc.  Medium  4to.  42*.  net. 

TIMES. — "  Constitutes  a  monograph  of  quite  exceptional  interest  ami  beauty,  almost  an 
attractive  to  those  who  have  never  seen  the  house  as  to  those,  like  Mr.  Harrison,  who  have 
lived  in  It  and  learned  to  love  it.  ...  He  has  invested  an  old  house  with  the  undying 
Interest  of  our  national  life  and  history,  and  no  professed  historian  or  antiquary  can  do 
more,  while  few  can  do  it  better." 

STANDARD.— "The  book  is  written  with  scholarly  care,  as  well  as  with  imaginative 
insight,  and  everywhere  there  is  a  sense  of  space  about  the  narrative,  for  Mr.  Harrison 
never  allows  us  to  forget  the  changing  social  and  political  characteristics  of  each  succeed- 
ing  reign." 

DAILY  CHRONICLE. — "  Externally,  one  of  the  handsomest  books  we  have  seen  for  a 
long  time,  and  in  contents  a  very  charming  labour  of  love." 

WESTMINSTER  GAZETTE.— "  All  through  Mr.  Harrison's  pages  one  can  see  how  the 
'genius  of  the  place  has  inspired  him.  .  .  .  The  volume  is  magnificently  illustrated  by 
photographs,  etchings,  and  drawings,  many  of  which  show  up  with  beautiful  clearness 
charming  'bits'  of  the  building,  and  give  an  excellent  idea  of  the  delicate  decoration 
which  is  so  marked  a  feature  of  it.  The  numerous  head  and  tail-pieces  are  all  taken  from  tin- 
ornamental  terra-cotta  work,  and  are,  in  their  way,  gems." 

SATURDAY  REVIEW.— "Mr.  Harrison  would,  no  doubt,  write  well  upon  any  house 
which  had  a  history  worth  the  tracing  out.  But  his  work  upon  this  particular  manor- 
house  has  all  the  additional  charm  of  a  labour  of  love." 

SPECTATOR.—"  Mr.  Harrison  has  managed  to  combine  just  the  right  amount  of  imagina- 
tion and  learning,  and  to  give  their  proper  places  and  proportions  to  the  history,  the  art,  the 
architecture,  the  heraldry,  the  genealogy,  and  that  special  lore  connected  with  old  things, 
i.M  places,  and  old  families,  that  want  a  specific  name.  Above  all,  we  feel  with  Mr. 
Harrison  that  he  has  not  merely  got  up  these  subjects  for  the  purpose  of  the  book." 

TABLET.— "A.  more  beautiful  gift-book  than  this,  or  one  more  welcome  in  the  homes  of 
Catholic  England,  would  be  difficult  to  desire." 

The  Choice  of  Books ;  and  other  Literary  Pieces.  By  FREDERIC 
HARRISON.  Second  Edition.  Globe  8vo.  5*.  [Kversley  Series. 

OXFORD  REVIEW.—"  It  is  long  since  any  book  of  this  kind  has  appeared,  so  notable  for 
keen  insight,  breadth  of  view,  and  clear,  definite,  expressive  method.  It  is  a  volume  which 
may  be  taken  up  at  any  moment,  and  will  nut  readily  be  laid  down  ;  which  may  be  opem  <1 
anywhere,  and  will  at  once  enchain  attention." 

The  New  Calendar  of  Great  Men.  Biographies  of  the  558  Worthies 
of  all  Ages  and  Countries  in  the  Positivist  Calendar  of  Auguste  Comte. 
Edited  by  FREDERIC  HARRISON.  Crown  8vo.  7«.  6d.  net. 

MR.  JOHN  MOBLEY  in  the  NINETESNTH  CENTURY.—"  It  is  not  too  much  to  say— no 
far  as  one  like  myself  can  judge— that  a  high  level  of  general  competency  has  been  attained , 
though,  of  course,  in  a  survey  of  this  encyclopedic  magnitude,  there  are  a  thousand  points 
for  remark,  deduction,  and  objection.  In  one  respect  everybody  will  concur  K\  en  those 
who  are  most  ready  to  find  Positivism,  as  a  creed,  hard,  frigid,  repulsive,  and  untrue,  will 
•till  recognise  and  admire  the  genuine  and  devout  enthusiasm  for  purity,  nobility  and 
beauty,  In  art,  literature,  character,  life,  and  service,  which  has  inspired  the  present 
enterprise  and  marks  every  page  of  it." 

ATHBN&UM.— "  Well  written  and  accurate  sketches,  and  form  much  more  Interesting 
reading  than  notices  generally  so  brief  could  be  expected  to  be.  ...  The  notices  as  a  rule 
display  great  knowledge  and  sympathy." 

MACMILLAN   &  CO.,  LONDON. 

79 


DATE  DUE 


JUL      5 


JUN  1  7   966  5 


GAYLORD 


